Jobless Filipinos soar to 10 million — SWS

MANILA,Philippines — The number of jobless Filipinos continued to increase in the third quarter of 2019, reaching an estimated 10 million adults, based on the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The survey, conducted from Sept. 27 to 30 with the results released yesterday, showed that the adult joblessness rate in the country has reached 21.5 percent, up from the 20.7 percent, or an estimated 9.8 million jobless adults, recorded in June.

It was also higher than the 19.7 percent, or an estimated 9.4 million, jobless adults recorded in March.

According to SWS, “jobless” Filipinos include adults who voluntarily left their jobs, those seeking jobs for the first time and those who lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control.

The latest survey showed that 4.4 million of those who said they were jobless in the September survey said they voluntarily left their jobs, while 1.6 million were first-time job-seekers.

The remaining 3.9 million were retrenched, either due to non-renewal of expired contracts, closure of operations of their previous employers or because they were laid off.

SWS said the rise in joblessness was due to increases in Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon and Mindanao, combined with a decrease in the Visayas.

The joblessness rate is highest in Balance Luzon at 25 percent of the labor force (up from 21.7 percent in June), followed by Metro Manila at 24.5 percent (up from 24.3 percent) and Mindanao at 19.9 percent (up from 18.7 percent).

Meanwhile, joblessness fell in the Visayas, from 18.1 percent in June to 11.8 percent in September.

Joblessness rose both in urban and rural areas, from 21.9 percent to 23.4 percent and from 19.8 percent to 20.3 percent, respectively.

It also increased among men and women, with the survey showing an increase in the gender gap, or the difference between the number of jobless men and women.

Compared to June, adult joblessness among women rose from 28.5 percent to 31.4 percent in September, while the number of men who were jobless rose from 14.3 percent to 14.6 percent.

This translates to a gender gap of 16.8 points in September, up from 14.2 points in June.

Job optimism drops

The same survey also showed a decrease in the number of people who believe that there will be more jobs in the next 12 months. 

Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they believe that there will be more jobs in the next year, lower than 55 percent recorded in June.

Meanwhile, 13 percent said there would be fewer jobs, one point higher than the 12 percent in June.

The number of those who believe that there will be no change in job availability in the next year decreased from 22 percent to 21 percent.

The survey is composed of 1,800 respondents and a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percent for national percentages.