Hi sharom thanks for the article in Philippine comparison the unemployment all age sector is high which have an estimate population of 95 million people.
IN JANUARY 2010
Results from the January 2010 Labor Force Survey (LFS)
| Philippines | January 2010 1/ | January 2009 |
| Population 15 years and over (in '000) | 60,208 | 58,657 |
| Labor Force Participation Rate (%) | 64.5 | 63.3 |
| Employment Rate (%) | 92.7 | 92.3 |
| Unemployment Rate (%) | 7.3 | 7.7 |
| Underemployment Rate (%) | 19.7 | 18.2 |
2/ Population 15 years and over is from the 2000 Census-based population projections.
The number of employed persons in January 2010 was estimated at 36.0 million, increasing by 5.0 percent over last year�s estimate of 34.3 million persons. This placed the current employment rate at 92.7 percent, which is not significantly different from the estimate reported last year at 92.3 percent.
After some white-collar workers reach the age of 62, their salaries are slashed by half, while they still shoulder the same workload. Their annual leave is also reduced to the minimum of seven days, as required by law.
It is sad that the phrase, 'Old is gold', is no longer valid in this day and age. Mature staff are treated so shabbily nowadays that if I were not starving, I would not lower my pride and accept such terms.
However, most people who need their jobs have no choice, as they will be discriminated against because of their age if they decide to look for work elsewhere.As employers are fully aware of the predicament such older workers are in, their attitude towards such staff is: 'Take it or leave it. If you go, we can always employ someone else.' Take a look around the food courts. Most of the lowly- paid positions there are taken up by foreigners.It seems that older Singaporeans no longer have a place in the workforce.
OLD-TIMERS recall the 1950s as the Fabulous Fifties. These days, in Singapore, labour experts wonder about the Missing Fifties - still active men in their 50s who quit looking for work.
Mr Soh Kim Huat, for instance, left money broking firm Tullett & Tokyo Degani at the peak of his career. He was 55 then, and was the Singapore managing director of the Britain-based firm, now known as Tullett Prebon. Now 62, he felt the high-stress job had almost made him into a 'monster'. 'I can be very rude when the work is intense. One day I told myself: 'Enough is enough',' he said. Now, he is happy to soak in more family time. He has five children aged 16 to 37, and five grandchildren aged seven months to six years.
From the perspective of the Manpower Ministry, however, experienced people like Mr Soh could have plugged the gap arising from fewer younger workers due to Singapore's low fertility rate. Official manpower figures show that the labour force participation rate for Singaporeans and permanent residents dips after age 50. Among workers in the 55 to 64 age group, 57 per cent are still working - a long way off the government's target of 65 per cent by 2012. This 57 per cent figure is very much lower than the 80 per cent labour force participation rate for workers in the 25 to 54 age group.
The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) has said it wants to find out why men leave the workforce once they reach their 50s. NTUC deputy secretary-general Heng Chee How felt: 'some become self-employed and others for various reasons, including family duties, may also have left work.' Recruitment firms said other reasons were retrenchment and subsequent difficulty in finding other jobs that matched their expectations.
