Wanted: Workers for poverty survey

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) needs nearly 50,000 additional workers.

The department has revealed plans to hire 47,644 field workers, including 31,908 enumerators or those who will conduct interviews for the National Household Targeting Survey for Poverty Reduction or the Listahanan.

Aside from the enumerators, the others who will be hired are 1,277 area coordinators; 6,383 area supervisors; 4,038 encoders and 4,038 verifiers, who will be tasked to collect information from the 15.3 million households in 1,490
municipalities and 144 cities nationwide.

The Listahanan is an information management system that makes available to national government agencies, local government units and other social protection stakeholders a comprehensive list of poor families in need of assistance.

The first Listahanan conducted by the DSWD was the database from which the agency made their list of beneficiaries of their flagship Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

The area coordinators will supervise and train area supervisors who are tasked to lead a team of enumerators.

The enumerators will conduct family interviews using the family assessment form, a four-page questionnaire with 52 variables that are pertinent in determining a household’s welfare level.

Encoders will input the data collected by the enumerators to the Listahanan database, while verifiers will check if the data entered are consistent and accurate.

Applications may be submitted though e-mail to [email protected] or delivered personally to the nearest DSWD regional office or at the social welfare and development team office in the province.

Interested individuals are encouraged to check the DSWD regional office websites for details.

Applicants will undergo a series of examinations and interviews to ensure that the most qualified individuals will be hired.

Once hired, they will be given intensive training on their specific roles in the assessment. They will also be deployed in areas where they are not from to ensure objectivity in conducting the assessment.

“The qualifications for these jobs are tight. This is because we want to work with competent, dedicated and honest individuals who can assure us that the data they will collect will be of the highest quality, complete and accurate,” DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman said.