For the most recent coverage see my Philippines file:
"Amid typhoon’s devastation, Filipinos find jobs scarce; Lack of wages compounds pain, slows recovery" by Teresa Cerojano | Associated Press, November 27, 2013
TANAUAN, Philippines — As Typhoon Haiyan tore across the eastern Philippines, coconut plantations older than the fathers of the men who tend them were smashed and call centers that field customer service gripes from around the world fell silent. The storm that killed thousands also wrecked livelihoods in the worst-hit region, a blow that will ripple long after the disaster fades from attention.
Already has been.
The workload of call and data centers that are soaked in water and choked with debris has easily been diverted to other Philippine cities. Less simple is the choice faced by thousands of workers: uproot and separate from family or stay in Leyte province and wait perhaps a year for the jobs to return.
The place is still recovering and in need of aid and the AmeriKan pre$$ is worried about call centers for corporate AmeriKa?
Tenant coconut farmers know they must clear flattened trees and replant. It will be three years before the new trees are mature enough to bear fruit.
In Tanauan, about 15 miles from the coastal city of Tacloban, which was inundated by a storm surge on Nov. 8, coconut farms are a tangle of snapped, uprooted, and twisted trees. Farmers say that even trees still standing will die because of damage to their cores.
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The coconut palm is known in the Philippines as the ‘‘tree of life’’ because every part of it has a use. Fronds are used as roofing, husks as floor cleaner or charcoal, white flesh can be eaten or processed into oil, the sap makes wine. Flowering four times a year for a harvest every three months throughout the decades-long life of the trees, coconuts have long allowed millions of people across the country to make a living.
But it’s a hardscrabble way of life. A harvest of 2,000 coconuts sells for $160 and tenant farmers must share that with landowners. Many have sought to leave farming behind.
Call center and other jobs in the blossoming outsourcing industry offer air-conditioned comfort and pay that is higher than average for white collar work in the Philippines. Those opportunities were multiplying in Leyte as more outsourcing companies moved in. Then Haiyan came, leveling towns and dreams.
Maybe they will move back to where they came.
At a call and data center in Palo, about eight miles from Tacloban, chairs, desks, and computers are soaked in water and caked with dirt.
The building wasn’t hit by Haiyan’s storm surge but monstrous winds peeled off iron-sheet roofing from the hangar-like structure as more than 500 people huddled within, leaving only the steel frame skeleton and soaking everything below. No one died on the premises of the company that had optimistically named itself Expert Global Solutions but some employees lost family.
Bosses visiting from Manila ordered hard drives of some 1,000 damaged computers destroyed to protect confidential data of clients mostly in the United States.
Power may be restored to the area in December, a crucial milestone for businesses that hope to rebuild.
Those with families are reluctant to leave even though they have no job options in Leyte....
It's called home.
--more--"
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Mass. General prepares team for Philippines
