The SWS Joblessness report
The SWS Joblessness report for June 2015 (“Adult joblessness rises to 23.2%; 10% lost their jobs involuntarily, 11% resigned”) appeared in BusinessWorld last Tuesday. Coincidentally, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s employment report (“Employment rate estimated at 93.5 percent in July 2015”) came out on Wednesday. The numbers of the two reports are not inconsistent with each other.
First, a minor distinction: The SWS report covers adults—i.e., old enough to vote, age 18 and up. The PSA report covers those officially old enough to work, which is age 15 and up; this distinction tends to lower the PSA employment rate, since youth of 15-17 are less at work than adults of 18 and up.
The major distinction, however, is that the SWS percentage of 21.3 refers to those saying they are Jobless (“walang trabaho”) at the time of the interview, whereas the PSA percentage of 6.5 refers to those saying they did not work for even one hour in the week before the interview. The SWS term “Jobless” is capitalized to distinguish it from the PSA term “Unemployed.” Both Jobless and Unemployed are those looking for work; their rates are percentages of the labor force, i.e., excluding those not looking for work.
Realistic measurement of the magnitude of stress due to lack of earning capacity. As I have argued in “Is 1 hour a week a ‘job’?” (5/26/12), “Joblessness versus idleness” (10/12/13), and “Jobless, but ‘Employed’” (2/15/14 ), the PSA Unemployment rate, currently 6.5 percent of the labor force, understates the magnitude of economic stress due to lack of earning capacity.
I think what causes stress to people is not so much lack of time working as lack of enough compensation from work, to enable them to sincerely say that they have trabaho, or a real job—see “Lack of pay, not lack of work,” (2/7/15). The SWS Joblessness rate of 23.2 percent means that over one-fifth of the labor force suffer from such stress.
The PSA Underemployment rate is an additional indicator of stress. In the official statistics, the Underemployed are those “employed” (i.e., had at least one hour at work last week) who nevertheless say that they are looking for more (paid) time at work, or else are looking for different (better-paid) work, than what they have now.
The new PSA report puts 21.0 percent of the Employed in this category, as of July 2015. With the Employed at 93.5 percent of the labor force, then the Underemployed are .210 x .935 = 19.6 percent of the labor force. The Unemployed plus the Underemployed are therefore .065 + .196 = 26.1 percent, or over one-fourth of the labor force. This is a more complete indicator of stress from lack of earning capacity than the simple PSA Unemployment rate. It is even larger than the SWS Joblessness rate, perhaps because its labor force age-boundary is only 15, whereas the SWS boundary is 18.
The rise in Joblessness was only in the latest quarter. The data tables (www.sws.org.ph) of the new SWS report show a rise in the Joblessness percentage from 19.1 in March 2015 to 23.2 in June 2015. The average percentage is 21.2 in 2015 thus far.
But two data points cannot make a trend. The average quarterly Joblessness percentages in previous years were: 25.4 in 2014, 25.2 in 2013, 28.8 in 2012, 23.6 in 2011, and 22.5 in 2010. Actually, the average for the first half of 2015 is below the 4-quarter averages of all years from 2005 to 2014. One has to go as far back as 2004 (15.8 percent) and earlier to find less stress than at present.
The Jobless are the most optimistic about their personal future. In the June 2015 Social Weather Survey, the respondents, all adults, consist of 56.8 percent with a job, 17.1 percent Jobless, and 26.0 percent not in the labor force (without a job but not looking for one).
The percentages expecting their personal quality of life (QOL) to get better in the next 12 months are 53 among the Jobless, 43 among those not in the labor force, and 38 among those with jobs. Subtraction of the percentages expecting their personal QOL to worsen, gives net optimism scores of +49 for the Jobless, +36 for those not in the labor force, and +32 for those with jobs, all above the +30 SWS boundary for Very High optimism. The national optimism for all adults is 42 percent gross, and +36 net (reported in BusinessWorld on 8/3/15).
The Jobless are the most optimistic about job prospects. Among the Jobless, 42 percent expect more jobs to become available in the next 12 months, whereas 18 percent expect fewer jobs to become available; this is a net optimism score of +23 points.
On the other hand, among those with jobs, gross optimism about future job prospects is 35 percent; net optimism is +16. Among those not in the labor force, gross optimism is 33 percent; net optimism is +14. The national optimism about job prospects among all adults is 36 percent gross, and +17 net.
The Jobless are slightly less satisfied with the national administration. Among the Jobless, 53 percent are satisfied with the administration’s performance, and 28 percent are not, for a +25 net satisfaction score. Those not in the labor force have similar satisfaction of 53 percent gross and +25 net.
Those with jobs, however, have satisfaction of 57 percent gross and +35 net, which carries over to national satisfaction of 55 percent gross and +31 net. Net scores of +30 to +49 are Good; net scores of +10 to +29 are Moderate.
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For previously unpublished tabulations used in this column, I am grateful to Josefina Mar of the SWS survey archive. Contact [email protected]
