PH unemployment rate goes up to 24%, says SWS survey

Philstar.com reports that the result of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted from December 3 to 7 last year, showed that the country’s unemployment rate "grew from 20.2 percent to 24 percent." The survey had 1,200 adult respondents from all over the country and had "sampling error margins of plus or minus three percentage points for national and plus or minus six points for area percentages."

According to SWS projections, the percentage of unemployed people in their survey translates to around  9.7 million Filipinos. The SWS also added: "Out of the 24 percent unemployed, 10 percent were retrenched, nine percent resigned and five percent were first-time jobseekers."

Philstar.com pointed out, however, that the result of the SWS survey is significantly different from that of the National Statistics Office (NSO). The NSO reported a 6.4 percent unemployment rate in October last year. Based on the projections of the NSO survey, an estimated 2.6 million Filipinos were unemployed.The report further noted: "The NSO said unemployment dropped below 20 percent in three out of 26 surveys from May 2005 to December 2011. The figure hit a record high 34.2 percent in February 2009."

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