Unemployed Pinoys up by 2 million in Q1 – SWS

The number of unemployed Filipinos rose by nearly two million in the first quarter of the year, according to the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The poll, conducted from March 30 to April 2, placed the joblessness rate at 23.9 percent (or an estimated 11.0 million adults), up by 2.5 points from 21.4 percent (9.1 million adults) recorded in December last year.

SWS said the new unemployment figure was the highest since December 2014’s 27 percent.

The survey used face- toface interviews of 1,500 adults nationwide and has sampling error margins of plus or minus three percentage points.

The results of the survey were published in the newspaper Business World yesterday.

The jobless Filipinos were composed of 12.8 percent (or an estimated 5.9 million adults) who voluntarily left their jobs, 7.2 percent (3.3 million adults) who involuntarily lost their jobs and 3.8 percent (1.8 million adults) who were first-time job seekers.

The proportion of those who resigned or left their jobs voluntarily rose 3.1 points from 9.6 percent in December, those retrenched fell by 0.9 of a point from eight percent, while the proportion of first-time job seekers slightly went up by 0.2 from 3.6 percent.

Those who were retrenched consisted of 5.6 percent whose contracts were not renewed, one percent who were laid off and 0.6 percent whose employers closed shop.

Meanwhile, the same survey showed that net optimism on job availability in the next 12 months dropped but remained “high.”

The SWS poll found 39 percent of respondents saying they expected the number of available jobs in the next 12 months to increase, 31 percent saying it will not change and 15 percent saying it will decrease.

The results yielded a net optimism score of +23 which was classified by SWS as “high.” This was a six-point drop from December 2015’s “high” +29.

The SWS classifies net optimism on job availability score of at least +30 as “very high”; +20 to +29, “high”; +10 to +19, “fair”; +1 to +9, “mediocre”; -9 to zero, “low”; as well as -10 and down as “very low.”