SWS: 46% of Pinoys believe economy will improve

MANILA, Philippines — Nearly half or 46 percent of Filipinos believe that the Philippine economy will improve in the next 12 months, a survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) released yesterday showed.

Economic optimists outnumbered the 28 percent who said it would stay the same while six percent believe the economy will worsen in the next year.

The SWS survey conducted from April 19 to 27 stated the resulting net economic optimism score derived by computing the percentage of economic optimists minus economic pessimists is +40, which is classified by the poll body as excellent (+40 and up).

Results showed that the latest net economic optimism score is four points below the excellent +44 in December 2021 which came from mediocre -9 in July 2020, mediocre -5 in September 2020 and high +24 in November 2020 during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SWS noted that net economic optimism is different from net personal optimism, which refers to expectations in personal quality of life.

Insofar as the latest survey covering the first quarter of 2022 is concerned, net economic optimism fell slightly in all areas except in the Visayas.

As of April 2022, SWS said net economic optimism is highest in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila) (+46), followed by Metro Manila (+43), Mindanao (+43) and the Visayas (+18).