Adult joblessness at highest since December 2016: SWS survey

May 1, 2018

Adult joblessness hit its highest since December 2016 even as optimism that there will be more jobs decreased, a poll by Social Weather Stations (SWS) said Monday.

Adult joblessness reached 23.9 percent or an estimated 10.9 million adults, said the survey, taken on March 23-27.

This is 6.2 percentage points above 15.7 percent, estimated at 5.7 million adults, in December 2017, and a percentage point above the March 2018 rate of 22.9 percent. It is the highest since 25.1 percent in December 2016, SWS said.

Optimism there will be more jobs went down by four percentage points from 53 percent in December 2017 to 49 percent in March, SWS said.

Adult joblessness are those who left their old jobs, those who lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control, termed as retrenched or first-time jobseekers.

Those which resigned or left their old jobs rose by 4.3 percentage points, from 8.3 percent in December 2017 to 12.6 percent in March.

Employees retrenched rose 1.8 percentage points to 7.7 percent. Of this number, some 3.9 percent said their contracts were not renewed, 2.2 percent were laid off and 1.7 percent said their employers closed down.

However, SWS said adult joblessness decreased in the National Capitol Region by 0.5 percentage points to 19.5 percent to a record low of 19 percent in March from 24.9 percent a year ago. DMS