CEBU CITY – Although the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) has granted the export sector a six-month extension to comply with the newly-mandated P18 wage increase, officials of a local furniture organization deem its implementation “too soon.”

The Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation Inc. (CFIF), in an official statement, expressed its sentiments on the new wage order, which the organization considers an additional burden for the already embattled industry.

“While we are grateful to the RTWPB for granting the export sector a six-month extension, we believe the industry cannot recover from the debilitating crisis in such a short time. We don’t see the recovery happening soon. As a matter of fact, many companies had to close shop and we cannot say that it would be bright in the near future,” the CFIF statement read.

According to CFIF President Angela Paulin, the major markets for the country’s furniture exports, including the United States, Europe and Japan, are still feeling the ill-effects of the global financial crisis and market recovery has not yet been fully restored.

“There is growth but it’s still very conservative,” Paulin noted.

The furniture sector representative further explained that the situation in their sector is aggravated by several conditions, such as rising operational cost due to hikes in the prices of power, fuel and raw materials. The frequency of power outages in Cebu has also been driving up industrial operating costs even as such has also resulted in damage to machines and materials, like veneer.

In addition, banks remain wary of businesses in the export industry and access to financing, thus, has become “very narrow and at worst, non-existent,” Paulin added.

“With our backs pushed further against the wall, there’s nothing we can do about the thousands of workers who have been displaced at the height of the crisis. We are particularly worried about small companies that can hardly pay for this mandated wage increase. To be able to pay the new minimum wage, they might even resort to further downsizing,” the statement issued by CFIF underlined.

Still, the organization says it accepts that it will have to comply with the mandated P18 wage hike, since “there is no other way around it.”

The CFIF made an “appeal to all workers to increase productivity. Without any improvement in productivity, the wage increase would bring no benefit and would only cause inflation to go up.”