Number of jobless Filipinos hits record high, survey says

Manila: The percentage of jobless Filipinos has reached its highest recorded in nearly two decades with adult unemployment standing at 34.4 per cent — 0.2 per cent over the 34.2 registered in February 2009.

Figures released by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) for First Quarter 2012 said that 13 per cent of Filipino adults, or 13.8 million lost their jobs involuntarily while 15 per cent had resigned.

The first-quarter survey was gathered nationwide through face-to-face interviews from 1,200 statistically representative adults from March 10-13.

The 34.4 per cent unemployment figure was 10 points more than the 24 per cent -- or about 9.7 million — recorded in the December 2011 survey.

SWS's definition of "unemployment" refer to the population of adults in the labour force.

"This is because respondents in the standard SWS surveys are those at least 18 years old. On the other hand, the official lower boundary of the labour force has always been 15 years of age.

"The 1993-2012 figures are consistently based on the traditional definition of unemployment as fulfilling two requirements: not working and looking for work. Those not working but not looking for work are excluded from the labour force; these are housewives, retired, disabled, students, etc.," it said

Prior to April 2005, the official definition of the unemployed was, likewise, those not working and looking for work. From April 2005 onwards, the official definition includes three requirements: not working, looking for work, and available for work; it subtracts those not available for work, even though looking for work, and adds those available for work but not seeking 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.

"If the official definition is applied, the unemployment rate among adults 18 years old is 26.3 per cejt (est. 9.4 million) in the SWS March 2012 survey. It is lower than when computed using the traditional definition because the correction for those looking for work but ‘not truly available' is much larger than the correction for those ‘actually available' though not looking for work at the moment.

In the SWS surveys, employed persons are those who are currently working ("may trabaho sa kasalukuyan"), including unpaid family worker. Respondents are free to decide whether or not they fit this description at the time of the interview.

The March 2012 Social Weather Survey was gathered from interviews conducted in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.