Adult joblessness decreases to 39.5% in September — SWS
MANILA, Philippines — Adult joblessness has declined to 39.5% percent of the adult labor force, according to a Social Weather Stations phone survey that reported a record high of 45.5% joblessness in July.
SWS said in a release Monday evening that the estimated numbers of jobless adults according to its September 17-20, 2020 National Mobile Phone Survey were 23.7 million in September 2020 against 27.3 million in July 2020.
The jobless are composed of those who voluntarily left their previous jobs, are looking for jobs for the first time, and those who lost their jobs "due to economic circumstances beyond their control."
Among those who lost their jobs, two of every five were left jobless during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, SWS said. This proportion, 14%, was down from the 21% in the July 2020 survey.
Another 22% lost their jobs or livelihoods before the pandemic while 12% had never worked before. The remaining 52% of respondents were employed at the time of the survey.
Joblessness rises in the Visayas
Although joblessness declined nationwide, it rose among respondents in the Visayas — to 52% in September from 46.6% in July.
"The six-point decline in the national joblessness rate was due to decreases of 12 points (correctly rounded) in Balance Luzon, six points in Mindanao, and four points in Metro Manila, combined with an increase of five points in the Visayas," SWS said.
SWS found that adult joblessness fell only slightly in urban areas, to 38.5% in September against 43.9% in July. Rural areas saw a decline in joblessness to 38.5% in September from 46% in July.
"Adult joblessness hardly varies by locale, with the urban-rural joblessness gap reaching double-digit in only 9 out of 106 surveys since September 1993," SWS also said.
Hunger up among jobless
The number of families experiencing involuntary hunger, or hunger due to lack of food to eat, at least one in the past three months increased among those with no jobs or livelihoods to 38.3% from 25.4% in September and among those who had never had a job before — 38.4% against 24.2% in the July survey.
Even among the employed, involuntary hunger rose to 24.3% from 17% in July.
"Moderate Hunger – those who experienced hunger 'Only Once' or 'A Few Times' in the last three months – rose among those with no job/livelihood, from 19.4% to 27.1%, among those who never had a job/livelihood before, from 16.4% to 27.8%, and among those with a job/livelihood, from 12.9% to 17.3%," SWS also said.
Severe hunger, or experiencing hunger "often" or "always" in the last three months, also increased. Among the jobless, it rose to 11.2% from 6% and to 10.6% from 7.8% among those who had never had a job or livelihood before. Severe hunger among the employed rose to 7% from 4.1%.
SWS says the SWS September 17-20, 2020 National Mobile Phone Survey "was a probability-based survey conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) of 1,249 adult Filipinos (18 years old and above) nationwide: 309 in Metro Manila, 328 in Balance Luzon, 300 in the Visayas, and 312 in Mindanao (sampling error margin of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao)."
The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2020 to obtain the national estimates, it also said.
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