Lack of pay, not lack of work

In the Philippines, 27.0 percent (of adults—i.e., those 18 years old and up) do not have a job and are looking for a job. Thus Joblessness, a meaningful concept measured by SWS, is a very serious problem.

On the other hand, only 6.0 percent (of those 15 years old and up—i.e., including near-adults) did not work recently, are looking for work, and are available to work in two weeks or less. Unemployment, as officially defined, would appear to be mild, giving a wrong signal that there is no problem on the labor front.

The SWS Jobless statistic of 27 percent is from “Fourth Quarter 2014 Social Weather Survey: Adult joblessness at 27.0%; 9% lost their jobs involuntarily, 14% resigned” (www.sws.org.ph, 2/4/2015). These were those that said No (“Wala”), when asked if they had a job (“trabaho”) at present—i.e., when interviewed, in Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 2014—and later said they were looking for a job. Including the criterion of availability to work in two weeks or less, the SWS rate of joblessness-of-the-available is 17.9 percent, or still much higher than the official unemployment rate.

The official Unemployment statistic of 6 percent is from the Philippine Statistics Authority (web0.psa.gov.ph). It refers to those that said that their work during the week prior to being interviewed, in October 2014, was for less than one hour, if at all, and also said they were looking for work, and available for it. More meaningful is

official Underemployment (18.7 percent), which refers to those who worked last week, yet want to have more work.

Work of one hour per week is officially called Employment, but it cannot be what normal people call a Job—see “Is one hour a week a ‘job’?” (Opinion, 5/26/2012). The truth is that there are many people who spend hours each week trying to earn a living, and yet can honestly say that they do not have trabaho—see “Joblessness versus idleness” (Opinion, 10/12/2013).

In my view, telling a survey interviewer that one has a trabaho implies being minimally satisfied with one’s work. What the SWS figures show—and what the official unemployment figures do not show—is people’s dissatisfaction with their work circumstances, as shown by the fact that half of the Jobless (14 of the 27 percentage points) already had jobs.

They resigned, obviously, to search for something better. Their problem was not lack of work to do, but lack of enough remuneration to stay at it. The critical metric for work should be how much real income (i.e., corrected for inflation) is earned by the average worker, rather than how many people work for at least one hour per week.

The jobless are not the poorest. Recall that self-rated poverty (SRP) in the fourth quarter of 2014 was 52 percent of all families, nationwide. This 52 percent is the average of 49 percent SRP in the families of the jobless, and a higher 56 percent SRP in the families of those with jobs. (Tabulated by Joanne Evangelista of SWS.)

This confirms findings of other researchers that people who are not so poor are the ones who can more easily afford to take time off to search for a better job. Thus, increasing the supply of jobs does not prioritize the poorest. More pay matters more than more jobs.

Three tasks for economic managers. To promote the wellbeing of workers, the main task is seeing to it that the real growth in Gross National Income is shared with workers, through wage adjustments, and not enjoyed solely by owners of businesses whose product-prices inflate naturally. The government should adopt a proactive wage policy, but it does not even have regular wage statistics, for its guidance.

One-third of the Jobless (9 percent of the labor force) lost their jobs due to economic retrenchment (nonrenewed work contract, layoff, or company closure). This is a problem of uneven growth of the economy. The secondary task is to find sunrise industries to replace the sunset ones.

A few of the Jobless (3 percent of the labor force) were first-time job-seekers. This is the burden caused by excessive population growth, years ago when today’s new jobseekers were born. It will take equally long for the recent reform in reproductive health policy to relieve the demographic pressure on the labor market.

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The Mamasapano Incident. On the controversies engendered by this tragic event, Social Weather Stations takes no stand, as an institution, except to condole with the loved ones of all the victims—on all sides, including the civilians—for their loss, and to pray for peaceful relations everywhere in our country.

SWS will include the Mamasapano incident in the agenda for its next quarterly survey, to be fielded in March. As always, it makes no prejudgment about what it will find public opinion on the issues to be.

Of all the Mamasapano commentary, what inspires me the most is “Walk in silence for peace” by Ateneo de Davao University president Fr. Joel

Tabora, SJ, given at the Interfaith Walk for Peace in Davao City last Tuesday, which includes a prayer:

“Humbly, in our sorrow, we ask you, O God, for your help.

“We come to you because you are our God.

Moving in our hearts, in the geniuses of our differing religions, you are our Father, you are our Allah, you are our Manama, Magbabaya, Dawata, Krishna, Vishnu, Brahma. You call us to peace.

“We beg you, do not abandon us in our march for peace, lasting peace. Walk with us. Guide us.

Lead us.”

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