Number of unemployed Pinoys drops to 8.6 million in Q2 of 2018 — SWS

In its Second Quarter 2018 Social Weather Survey conducted on June 27 to 30, the pollster revealed that 19.7 percent of Filipinos were jobless — a 4.2 points below the 23.9 percent or an estimated 10.9 million Filipinos. (File Photo: Department of Labor and Employment – DOLE/Facebook)

Unemployment among adult Filipinos went down to an estimated 8.6 million, the latest survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

In its Second Quarter 2018 Social Weather Survey conducted on June 27 to 30, the pollster revealed that 19.7 percent of Filipinos were jobless — 4.2 points below the 23.9 percent or an estimated 10.9 million Filipinos.

The polling firm’s adult joblessness data is referring to those who are in the labor force. It noted that adult joblessness is composed of those individuals who voluntarily left their old jobs, those who lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control, and those seeking jobs for the first time.

The SWS found that 9.5 percent or about 4.2 million adults voluntarily left their previous jobs, while 6.8 percent or three million adults involuntarily lost their work. Meanwhile, 3.4 percent or an estimated 1.5 million Filipinos were first-time job seekers.

The adult labor force participation, on the other hand, was at 68.3 percent, a 3.1 percent decline from the 71.4 percent in March 2018.

While saying that there was a drop in the number of jobless Filipinos in the second quarter of this year, the SWS noted that those who are optimistic that there will be more jobs in the next 12 months also decreased.

According to the survey, those who believe that there will be “more jobs” went down to 47 percent from the 49 percent in March, while those who think that there will be “fewer jobs” went up by three points from 12 percent to 15 percent.

Furthermore, those who said there will be “no change” in job availability shrunk to 24 percent from 25 percent last March.

The net optimism on job availability fell by five points from +37 to +32 in June, but the pollster still considered it a “very high” score.

In terms of area, joblessness dipped by 8.8 points in Balance Luzon from the previous 28.1 percent to 19.3 percent. It has also gone down by 2.5 points in Visayas from 21. 5 percent to 19 percent.

Joblessness in both Metro Manila and Mindanao hardly changed with only a 0.4-point jump to 19.4 percent and 21.2 percent, respectively.

The SWS’ June 2018 survey used face-to-face interviews on its 1,200 respondents (18 years old and above) nationwide, with sampling error margins of plus or minus three percent for national percentages, and plus or minus six percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

On Thursday, September 13, Malacañang welcomed the results of the survey, saying that it is an indication that the Philippine economy remains ‘strong’ despite rising prices of goods in the country.