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42% of Filipino non-home-based workers find it ‘very much harder’ to travel to work this pandemic — SWS
With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, going to work became “very much harder” for 42 percent of non-home-based working Filipinos, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey on Friday, May 7.
The survey found that 82 percent of its 1,500 respondents go to their workplace, while 18 percent of them work from home.
Metro Manila has the highest percentage of home-based workers with 29 percent, followed by Balance Luzon with 22 percent, Mindanao with 13 percent, and Visayas with 10 percent.
Conducting face-to-face interviews with the respondents, the SWS asked them the question, “Gaano po kayo nahihirapan sa pagpasok sa trabaho ngayon kumpara noong bago nagkaroon ng pandemyang Covid-19 (How difficult is it for you to go to work now as compared before the Covid-19 pandemic)?”
While 42 percent said going to work is “very much harder” at this time, 19 percent said it is “somewhat much harder now,” and 11 percent said it is “slightly harder now.”
Twenty-eight percent saw no difference between going to work during the pandemic and pre-pandemic times.
Among the non-home-based workers, 44 percent said they walk to work. Others were riding a motorcycle (24 percent), tricycle (14 percent), jeepney or multi-cab (eight percent), bicycle (five percent), bus (three percent), private car (three percent), and motorboat or banca (one percent).
Public transportation in the country is in a limited capacity with COVID-19 protocols in place, thus, making some working Filipinos look for other means of getting to work.
The sampling error margins in the survey, conducted from November 21 to 25, are plus-minus 2.5 percent for national percentages, plus-minus four percent for Balance Luzon, and plus-minus six percent for Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.