MANILA – About 11 million Filipinos, or 27.9 percent of the country’s adult labor force are unemployed and are expected to remain so in the wake of the worsening global financial and economic turmoil, according to a recent survey of a prestigious polling organization.
In releasing its findings, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) warned that the continued unemployment of these adults, 18 years old and above, increases the vulnerability of their families to hunger.
This was proven, the SWS said, when the survey found hunger among families of the unemployed higher (31.4 percent) compared to families of the employed consisting of private and government employees and the self-employed.
The non-commissioned survey, conducted from November 28 to December 1, 2008, used face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults in Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon as well as the Visayas and Mindanao, the SWS reported.
It said that total hunger, or those experiencing involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months, was 31.4 percent among families of the unemployed compared to 29.2 percent among families of private sector employees, 19.7 percent among their counterparts of the self-employed and 12.7 percent among families of public servants.
Severe hunger, referring to those who experience involuntary hunger “often” or “always” in the last three months was 7.6 percent for both the unemployed and private sector employees as well as 2.6 percent among the self-employed and government employees, the SWS said.
Meanwhile, the SWS said that moderate hunger, or those who experienced it “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, was 23.8 percent among the employed as against the 21.6 percent among private employees, 17.1 percent among the self-employed and 10.1 percent among government employees.
The SWS explained its data on unemployment refer to the population of adults in the labor force. This is because all the respondents in the standard SWS surveys are those at least l8 years old.
The 1993-2008 figures are consistently based on the traditional definition of unemployment as not working and, at the same time, looking for work. Those not working but not looking for work are excluded from the labor force and they consist of housewives, retirees, the disabled and students, the SWS said.
On the other hand, the official lower boundary of the labor force has always been 15 years old. Formerly, the SWS said the official definition of unemployment was not working and looking for work.
However, from April 2005 onward, the SWS said the new official definition included the concept of availability for work and subtracts those not available for work although they are looking for work for the following reasons: tired/believe no work is available; awaiting results of a job application; temporarily ill/disabled, bad weather and waiting for rehire/job recall.
If the official definition is applied, the unemployment rate among 18 years old is 22.3 percent in the SWS December 2008 survey, the polling organization pointed out.
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