Employment in Metro Manila up by 3.22 percent in 4th quarter of 2013

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Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis- Baldoz yesterday said  that employment in the country’s capital, Metro Manila, as shown by the labor turnover rate, grew by 3.22 percent after more laborers got hired than those that got fired, or opted to resign, during the fourth quarter of 2013.

“This is the highest recorded turn-over rate since the fourth quarter of 2010,” said Baldoz, citing the results of the Labor Turnover Survey (LTS) of the  DOLE’s Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), now under the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Baldoz said Metro Manila registered a labor turnover rate of 4.05 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010; 1.88 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011; and 2.47 percent in 2012.

In employment parlance, labor turnover is the difference between accession and separation.

The LTS is a quarterly sample survey of enterprises conducted by the BLES to capture “job creation” or “accession” and “job displacement” or “separation” as indicators of labor market activity.

The information gathered in this survey is intended to generate timely labor market signals as sound basis in planning, policy formulation, and decision making.

The BLES survey has 735 large enterprises as respondents, drawn from the 2011 Edition of the Philippines’s Top 25,000 Corporations of the Securities and Exchnage Commission. It has a retrieval rate of 99.59% percent. The BLES issued the results of the survey this month.

“Employment in large enterprises in Metro Manila continued its upswing in the fourth  quarter of 2013  driven by the strong hiring in wholesale and retail trade in time for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Robust expansion in administrative and support service activities and professional , scientific, and technical activities also fueled the upswing,” said Baldoz.

Specifically, the overall accession rate in Metro Manila was 8.86 percent, higher than the 5.64 percent separation rate registered during the reference period.

This indicates that 88 workers per 1,000 workers got employed due to expansion or replacement of workforce, while only 56 workers per 1,000 were either laid off, or quit their jobs, during the same period, a net addition of 32.

The survey noted that the rise in labor turnover rate in the fourth quarter was driven by large gains in three sub-sector with big enterprise employment base, namely, administrative and support service activities (9.55 percent); wholesale and retail trade (3.77 percent); and professional , scientific, and technical activities (3.46 percent).

Gains were also recorded in financial and insurance (2.34 percent); manufacturing (2.21 percent); information and communication (1.52 percent); and in industries with small enterprise employment base, such as arts, entertainment, and recreation (3.16 percent); human health and social work activities (2.82 percent); and agriculture, forestry, and fishing (2.30 percent).

Mining and quarrying continued its slack (-9.27 percent), while private education was also down (-2.74 percent).

Accession rate barely offset separation in construction (0.05 percent), and in sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities (0.15 percent), while employment was about unchanged in electricity, gas, steam and airconditioning supply (0.60 percent).

What are the reasons for accession and separation?

The BLES survey said accession was due to expansion of business activities (4.39 percent), which was almost at par with accession due to replacement of workers, (4.47 percent).

Specifically, seven industry groups registered higher accession due to expansion. These are in administrative and support service activities that include the business process outsourcing (11.76 percent); professional, scientific, and technical activities, (6.12 percent); manufacturing (5.81 percent); and construction (4.95 percent).

The  BLES survey noted that employer-initiated separations, or lay-offs, were higher at 3.51 percent compared to employee-initiated separations, or resignation, which was at 2.14  percent.

Press release courtesy of the Department of Labor and Employment, 14 April 2014.