True jobless population size affects policy, budget choices

The government has its count of how many jobless Filipinos there are. The IBON Foundation disputes these figures as an “underestimation.” In the foundation’s writings some malice is hinted at.

The Social Weather Stations (SWS) also comes up with figures vastly different from that present by the government.

Who is right? Who is wrong. Why is there a disparity?

In the article “IBON disputes underestimation” the foundation’s researchers see that the government’s “January 2009 Labor Force Survey confirms the country’s descent into greater joblessness due to the global crisis and accumulated domestic economic weaknesses. The figures, however, are a gross underestimation of joblessness in the country, which is likely to have already reached at least a massive 4.3 million.”

Social Weather Stations says, in the article “SWS: Just impartially tracking the facts for years,” the country’s leading research and survey institution, says “the record-high unemployment among Filipino adults is rising, from 11 million to 14 million in the first quarter of this year.”

The figures the SWS released this week, were immediately disputed by government officials because they represent at least 300 percent more jobless than the government says we have.

The SWS question (“Are you working at present, not working but used to, or have you never worked?”), has never been changed since 1993. SWS chief Mahar Mangahas says through the years, SWS joblessness figures have many times come out lower than those that of government. This proves that all SWS has been doing is track down the truth from what survey respondents say.

Mahar Mangahas says: “SWS has no intention of springing surprises on the government. The core indicators are kept unchanged so that comparisons over time will be valid.”

Mangahas points out that the “indicators are not paid for by anyone; their costs are shouldered by the sponsors of other items in the Social Weather survey in much the same way that the costs of a broadsheet’s news are in effect shouldered by its advertisers.”

Why are there differences? In “NEDA and DOLE explain govt numbers” the Labor secretary and other DOLE officials, as well as those of NEDA, tell us that the government survey involves more than 51,000 households while SWS only has 1,500 respondents. Also, that the government uses parameters of the International Labor Organization.

How and why the redefinition of what unemployment and how the unemployed are is clearly explained by Ms. Editha Rivera in “How and why the labor force framework was redefined.” This is an excellent paper presented at a seminar in Geneva. –Manila Times