More adults able to get jobs at end-2019: SWS survey

February 4, 2020

More adults were able to get jobs as 2019, the Social Weather Stations ( SWS) said on Tuesday.

The Fourth Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey, done on December 13-16, 2019, found adult joblessness at 17.5 percent of the adult labor force, down by four percentage points from the 21.5 percentage in September 2019.

The estimated numbers of jobless adults were 7.9 million in December and 10.0 million in September.

SWS defines the Labor Force as adults (18 years and above) presently with a job plus those looking for a job. The Labor Force Participation Rateis the proportion of adults in the labor force. 

The December 2019 survey found the adult labor force participation rate at 68.7 percent for an estimated 45.5 million adults. This used to be 69.4 percent in September for an estimated 46.3 million adults.

Adults who are jobless consists of those who (a) voluntarily left their old jobs, (b) are seeking jobs for the first time, or (c) lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control, termed by SWS as the retrenched.

The 17.5 percent who were jobless in December 2019 consisted of 8.1 percent who voluntarily left their old jobs, 3.5 percent first-time job seekers, and 5.9 percent retrenched.

Those who were retrenched consisted of 3.7 percent whose contract ended and was no longer renewed, 1.3 percent who were laid off, and 0.9 percent whose previous employer closed operations.

The estimated 7.9 million jobless adults in December 2019 consisted of 3.7 million who voluntarily left their old job, 1.6 million first-time job seekers, 1.7 million whose contract ended and was not renewed, 613,000 who got laid off, and 399,000 whose employer closed operations.

The Fourth Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey was conducted from December 13-16, 2019 using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults (18 years old and above) nationwide: 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao).

The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2019 to obtain the national estimates.

The quarterly Social Weather Surveys on joblessness are not commissioned, and are done on SWS’s own initiative and released as a public service. DMS