THE government will reduce its growth forecast slightly for this year as a result of the worsening economic slump worldwide, Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto said yesterday.

?Chances are the higher end of the growth target will be adjusted,? he told reporters.

Government economists set a growth target of 3.7 to 4.7 percent in 2009, but Recto said new figures would be announced Wednesday, adding the reduction would be less than 1.0 percentage point.

Government planners were optimistic the gross domestic product would still expand by 4.0 percent, he said.

?Globally, the crisis will be longer than expected,? Recto said, noting that even the new stimulus package approved by US President Barack Obama had failed to boost the US stock market.

Exports plunged by more than 40 percent last year, and they may contract by a ?high single-digit or a low double-digit? level in 2009, Recto said.

Remittances might still grow, but not as fast as the 13.7-percent rise in 2008.

?The worst will be in the first six months of the year globally and in the Philippines,? he said.

But the good news was that inflation would slow to a range of 3.0 to 5.0 percent this year, down from an average 9.3 percent last year, and that would spur consumers to spend more. January inflation stood at 7.1 percent.

?We see a slowdown in GDP growth, but not significant, because I don?t expect consumption to go down that much,? Recto said.

Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. is expected to discuss this year?s economic prospects in detail today when he joins other speakers in a business forum, ?Opportunities During A Crisis,? sponsored by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc.

At least 39,000 Filipinos have lost their jobs since October as factories and companies lay off workers amid the deepening global financial crisis, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said yesterday.

The 39,000 included more than 5,400 overseas-based Filipinos who had lost their jobs in the Middle East and Taiwan, which accounted for the bulk of the returning expatriates, Roque said.

He said the figure was based on official reports by industry leaders as well as trade groups.

But the Public Works Department said it could generate 700,000 new jobs this year after it held a job fair yesterday to look for workers it would need in its infrastructure projects.

?We came up with this job fair to help not only contractors but more so skilled workers who need employment,? Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said.

Conservatively, he said, ?the number of jobs that we can generate for this year is 700,000.?

Roque said the government had allotted P7 billion to create 180,000 ?emergency jobs? this year as a stop-gap measure to prevent unemployment from ballooning.

?As of last Friday we had about 39,000 fall outs. These are workers who have lost their jobs mainly in the electronics and manufacturing sector,? Roque told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

He said the government had enough resources to create temporary employment in the next two years, but would be hard pressed if the crisis extended beyond that.

Roque noted that many Filipinos lost their jobs in the real estate and services sector in Dubai, but had managed to find employment elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates.

He said of the estimated 300,000 Filipinos in the Emirates, 2,000 were now out of work.

Places for Filipino nurses in the United States were also ?dropping,? with only 700 contracts up for grabs last year, compared with up to 8,000 available three years ago.

The jobless rate among Filipinos abroad could be much higher, he conceded, noting that a large portion of the eight million Filipino workers abroad were without proper documentation.

The government had already launched a retraining program for those who lost their jobs, with the business process outsourcing sector expected to provide opportunities as it was projected to grow 20 percent this year despite the crisis, Roque said.

But the government ?cannot hit a 100-percent batting average in terms of helping these overseas Filipinos,? he said, noting that many were already heavily in debt even before flying out.

?They are expecting immediate relief, and it?s something we can?t do quickly,? he said. Roderick T. dela Cruz with AFP and Joel E. Zurbano