DOLE says only 3.3M jobs lost to coronavirus pandemic

By: Consuelo Marquez – Reporter, 21 Aug 2020

MANILA, Philippines — Only over three million Filipinos were rendered jobless due to the continuing scourge of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected 178,022 people nationwide, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Friday.

“Sa amin (In DOLE), 3.3 million and that is growing,” Labor chief Silvestre Bello III said over Teleradyo when sought for the labor department’s data on job loss due to pandemic.

This figure is way below the figures provided by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) as a results of its survey which states that about 27.3 million Filipinos have become unemployed with the shutdown and downsizing of some industries due to the health crisis.

Bello said he will not contest the results of the SWS survey, but claimed that DOLE’s data on jobless Filipinos was sourced from employers in the country.

“Baka mag-iba ng figure kasi lumabas 27.3 million ang nawalan ng trabaho according to SWS. Kami, we don’t dispute that because that is a survey. Sa amin, we base our firgues on submission of all employers na nagsubmit ng mga numbers and names of employees na tinanggal sa work,” he said.

(Our figure might be different because it shows that 27.3 million people lost their jobs according to SWS. We don’t dispute that because that is a survey. For us, we base our figures on the submission of all employers who submitted numbers and names of their employees who were removed from their jobs.)

In its survey conducted from July 3 to July 6, 2020, SWS said that adult unemployment in the Philippines rose to 45.5%, or nearly half the adult labor force — a 28-point increase from 17.1% in December 2019, and a new record high from the 34.4% logged in March 2012.