Number of unemployed Filipinos rises to 9.7M – SWS

THE number of unemployed Filipinos has increased, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey said on Thursday.

The survey results, which were first published in BusinessWorld, showed that unemployment has jumped to 24 percent—or 9.7 million Filipinos—from the 20.2 percent recorded three months earlier, when another survey was conducted.

The pollster said that of the 9.7 million jobless, 10 percent were retrenched, 9 percent had quit their jobs and 5 percent were first-time jobseekers.

It added that the majority, or 7 percent of those who were retrenched, did not have their contracts renewed, while 2 percent saw their employers close shop and the remaining 1 percent received pink slips.

Down
SWS said that unemployment had fallen below 20 percent three times out of 26 surveys from May 2005 to December 2011.

The figure, it added, hit a record high of 34.2 percent in February 2009.

SWS said that since December 2010, the unemployment picture was hogged by those who had quit work or had lost their jobs because of economic circumstances.

It added that unemployment was relatively high among women and among younger members of the labor force, following the pattern in previous surveys.

SWS said that unemployment among men went down to 15.2 percent from 17 percent previously, while it increased to 35.6 percent from 25.6 percent among women.

The pollster said that unemployment also rose to 49.1 percent from 46.3 percent in the 18-year-old and 24-year-old age group and was slightly unchanged at 29.9 percent from 29.7 percent in the 25-year-old to 34-year-old age group.

It also increased to 18.7 percent from 13.7 percent for those in the 35-year-old to 44-year-old age bracket and to 17.3 percent from 13.8 percent for the 44 and older.

SWS said that it used the traditional definition of the unemployed as those not working but are looking for work and who are at least 18 years old.

It excluded from the definition those not working and also not looking for a job—housewives, retirees, students, etc.

SWS, citing the government definition, defined unemployment as including the “availability for work” concept: those who are not available despite looking for work are not counted while those available but not seeking work for reasons such as tiredness, illness, waiting for rehire/results of an application and bad weather are added.

It also defined the lower limit of the labor force at 15 years of age.

The latest SWS survey, which was conducted from December 3 to 7, 2011, used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults in Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon (Luzon without Metro Manila), Visayas and Mindanao and had margins of error of plus or minus 3 percent for national percentages and plus or minus 6 percent for area percentages.

SWS said that the survey was non-commissioned and conducted on its own initiative. –JOVEE MARIE N. DELA CRUZ, Manila Times