About 7.9 million Filipinos were found jobless in the fourth quarter of 2019, fewer than the 10 million-figure recorded in September last year, according to a Social Weather Stations survey released Tuesday.
The Dec. 13 to 16 survey found that the estimated number of jobless adults has eased to 17.5 percent from the 21.5 percent reported in September.
The 4-point decline in the national joblessness rate was due to decreases of 10 points in Metro Manila and 8 points in Balance Luzon, combined with increases of 4 points in the Visayas and 1 point in Mindanao.
Across all regions, Mindanao recorded the highest joblessness rate with 20.7 percent, followed by Luzon (17.3 percent), and Visayas (15.7 percent). Meanwhile, Metro Manila has the lowest joblessness rate with 15 percent.
The estimated 7.9 million jobless adults in December 2019 consisted of 3.7 million who left their jobs voluntarily, 1.6 million first-time job seekers, 1.7 million whose contract ended and was not renewed, 613,000 who got laid off, and 399,000 whose employer closed operations.
The December 2019 survey also revealed that joblessness in urban areas (15.3 percent) was lower than those in rural areas (19.6 percent).
The 15.3 percent urban joblessness rate in December dropped from 23.4 percent compared to September 2019, an 8-point decrease lowest in 15 years, according to SWS.
As in the past, the same poll also revealed that adult joblessness was higher among women (30.8 percent) than among men (8.3 percent).
In September 2019, adult joblessness was 14.6 percent among men and 31.4 percent among women.
The decrease in adult joblessness among men widened the gap of joblessness between females and males.
The same poll also showed that the proportion of adults in the labor force is at 68.7 percent or about 45.5 million, higher than the 69.4 percent in September or an estimated 46.3 million.
In addition, the survey found that 53 percent of adults were optimistic that there will be more jobs this year while 12 percent were pessimistic. Meanwhile, 24 percent said there will be “no change” in the number of jobs available and 11 percent said they “don’t know.”
This gives a job optimism score of +40, classified by SWS as “excellent.”
The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults and has a sampling error margin of ±3 percent for national percentages.
