ABOUT 5 million adult Filipinos are unemployed in the second quarter of 2018, according to the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey results.
In the nationwide survey conducted from June 27 to 30 with 1,200 respondents, 12.5 percent or about 5 million adult Filipinos are unemployed based on the definition of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
This is comprised of 12 percent (4.8 million) who were not working, looking for work, and available for work, and 0.4 percent (179,000) who were not working and available for work, but not looking for work for various reasons, such as tired or believe that no work is available, awaiting results of a job application, temporarily ill/disabled, bad weather, or waiting for rehire or job recall.
As reported by SWS last Sept. 12, adult joblessness was at 19.7 percent. This refers to the population of adults in the labor force because respondents in the standard SWS surveys are those at least 18 years old.
Meanwhile, the lower boundary of the official PSA labor force has always been 15 years of age.
The LFS definition of employed include all those who, during the week before the interview date, are 15 years and over as of their last birthday and are reported to be either at work for at least one hour during the reference week for pay or profit, or work without pay on the farm or business enterprise operated by a member of the same household related by blood, marriage, or adoption; or have a job or a business but are not at work because of temporary illness/injury, vacation, or other reasons.
Before April 2005, the official definition of the unemployed was those who did not work during the reference week and are looking for work.
However, from April 2005 onwards, the official definition was refined as follows: not working, looking for work, and available for work. It subtracts those who are looking but not available for work and adds those available but not looking for work for the following reasons: tired/believe no work is available, awaiting results of a job application, temporarily ill/disabled, bad weather, and waiting for rehire/job recall.
This means that with the availability requirement included, among the 8.6 million adults who were jobless and were looking for work, 41.9 percent (3.6 million) were not available for work at present or in the next two weeks.
In the past, SWS has compared its joblessness rate with PSA’s unemployment rate.
However, given the conceptual differences between SWS and PSA’s definitions of employment, such as in age range, and reference period, there has been an understandably large discrepancy between PSA’s unemployment rate and SWS’s joblessness rate. (Ellalyn de Vera-Ruiz)
