CARTOON BY: AARON PAUL C. CARIL
EDITORIAL
A new wave of revolution
While the world focuses on the war in the Middle East, with its violence and economic effects already felt in the Philippines through higher fuel prices, unstable shipping, and rising inflation, the country faces a different conflict at home. This one has no frontlines, explosions, or headlines. It moves quietly through software and automated systems, changing the way we work before most people even notice. Artificial intelligence is no longer simply an idea for the future; it is already taking jobs from Filipino workers, and even the country’s labor institutions now admit that this displacement is real.
Recent data shows this change is now impossible to ignore. A 2024 survey found that companies in the IT-BPM sector have let go of 31 to 40 workers each, mostly from Information Management and IT jobs that used to seem safe. Banking and Finance firms reported losing 11 to 20 employees, while manufacturing companies saw fewer than 10. These numbers might seem small, but they are the first clear signs that the labor market is being transformed.
Workers are seeing these changes firsthand. In the same ILS study, 14 people from the IT-BPM sector and one from Banking and Finance said they lost their jobs because of automation. Outside big companies, creative and freelance workers are losing even more jobs. Tasks like layouting, making storyboards, and other repetitive work have quickly moved to generative tools, leading industry veterans to say that “those jobs are gone.” For the more than two million Filipinos in the gig economy, things are even worse: global algorithms have pushed project fees down from ten dollars to just a few cents in only a few years.
Even with all this evidence, the country’s protections are still based on an older way of thinking about the economy. Current labor policies were made for a time when technology changed slowly and job loss was rare. They were not meant within a world where whole job types can disappear after a single software update. Learning new skills is still mostly optional, social protections still expect traditional jobs, and there is no national plan to help workers who lose their jobs to automation.
At the same time, the sectors most at risk are already feeling the pressure. There are fewer jobs in the BPO industry now, especially for positions that only need basic reading and English skills. Experts predict a net loss of 300,000 jobs in the next five years, with only 100,000 new jobs to make up for it. Many of these new jobs will be short-term, lower-paying, and much less stable. These early signs suggest a long and difficult adjustment period that the country is not ready for.
The Philippines is at a turning point. While the conflict overseas gets most of the world’s attention, the quieter changes happening here will have just as big an impact on the country’s future. It is no longer a question of whether workers are losing their jobs—they are. The real challenge is whether the country can create the protections and support needed so that this new wave of change does not leave people behind.