Thousands of workers are set to be laid off this coming February to March after three companies declared their plans to either trim down their workforce or totally close down after suffering bankruptcy during the pandemic.

On February 2, the Philippine Airlines announced its plan to retrench 2,300 workers citing that it has suffered huge income losses due to low demand for local and international flights. The said workers comprise 30% of the company’s total workforce. According to data by the regime, the travel and tourism industry has suffered a total income loss of ₱400 billion in 2020.

Earlier, the Makati Shangri-la Hotel also announced its plan to temporarily stop its operations since February 1. It has yet to disclose the number of workers it retrenched.

The car manufacturing company Nissan Motors also closed down its factory in Laguna in compliance with its plan to decrease production across the globe since 2019. The demand for cars has been low even before the pandemic, and it has further decreased last year.

The said workers will add to the 5.79 million Filipinos who have lost their jobs in 2020 due to lockdown restrictions. This contributed to the slumping of the gross domestic product by 9.5% for the entire year. This is the worst economic downturn that the country has experienced since 1946 or after World War 2.

Despite the hardships suffered by those who lost their jobs, the regime has no program to aid them. They cannot expect any subsidy from the regime as it has junked even the Department of Labor and Employment’s proposal to allocate a minimum subsidy of ₱20 billion for them in the national budget.