DOLE refutes high unemployment rate

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) yesterday maintained that the government has already curbed the high unemployment rate in the country.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said that contrary to results of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, the unemployment rate has significantly gone down.

“One important thing that needs to be emphasized is the fact that the Aquino administration has arrested and reversed the steep ascent of unemployment rates from the double figures in the period before 2010 to single digit level today,” Baldoz said.

She said that based on the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the country’s unemployment is now pegged at seven percent, or 2.8 million from 7.1 percent in July 2011.

“The country’s labor market continues to perform better as the employment level has grown by 1.3 percent, with total employed persons increasing from 37.106 million in 2011 to 37.584 million in July 2012, as borne out by the results of the NSO’s LFS,” Baldoz said.

She argued that the quality of employment has also improved in past years, noting that persons employed full-time went up by 2.3 percent, or 563,000 in July 2012, and wage and salary employment, which posted an increase of 6.3 percent, or 1.314 million.

“As a result of the increase in the number of wage and salaried workers, there was a large reduction in the number of self-employed persons and unpaid family workers. The SWS survey did not reflect this result,” Baldoz said.

She said the proportion of persons in vulnerable employment, or self-employed persons and unpaid family workers in total employment also dropped to 37 percent from 40.2 percent in July 2011, or by 3.2 percentage points.

Baldoz stressed that the SWS’ quarterly Adult Unemployment Survey is different than the quarterly survey of NSO and therefore not comparable.

“For one, the methodologies of the two surveys are different. The SWS has a respondent coverage of 1,200 aged 18 years old and above, while the LFS has a respondent coverage of persons 15 years old and above in 51,000 households,” she explained.

She said the SWS survey results on unemployment are usually higher than the results of the LFS.

But Baldoz said some of the SWS findings validate the government’s confidence in its efforts to facilitate the creation of jobs.

“The SWS survey reveals that 33 percent of its respondents said there would be more jobs in the next 12 months. One reinforcing data is the number of job vacancies posted at the government’s official job and skills matching and job search facility, the Phil-JobNet, which reached a record high of 180,190 local job vacancies uploaded by employers in October 2012,” she said.

To address the current challenges in the employment, Baldoz said the government continues to promote and implement job creation facilitation programs.

However, a group of Filipino migrants said the results of the SWS survey belied the claim of the government that the employment condition in the country is improving.

“The recent SWS survey serves a ‘crystal clear’ mirror on the state of unemployment in the Philippines. Notably, it’s not getting better under the Aquino administration,” Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said.