Survey Shows 69% Of Filipino Adults Are Struggling To Find Jobs

A recent poll showed that 69 percent of Filipino adults are finding it hard to land a job despite the local economy showing signs of recovery after restrictions eased up since the pandemic.

The Social Weather Stations survey conducted on March 26 to 29 also said that 11 percent of the 1,200 respondents find it easy to land a job while 16 percent said finding a job was "neither easy nor hard" and 4 percent said they "don't know."

Finding a job has always been hard for Filipino job seekers since 2011, the survey firm said in this GMA News report.

The results of the poll showed a negative picture of the local labor market still recovering from the economic effects of the pandemic. The present inflation has led many Filipinos struggling in making ends meet even as the economy reopened and more jobs became available, the Philippine Star noted.

Despite this, fifty percent of the respondents believed there will be "more jobs" in the next 12 months while 26 pecent believed there will be "no changes" as far as employment opportunities are concerned. Ten percent said there will be "fewer jobs" in the coming months and 14 percent said they "don't know."

Interestingly, SWS noted that since 2009, except during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Filipinos have always been more optimistic about finding employment.

In contrast, the research firm also said that getting hired has always been difficult since 2011. Problems in getting employed have slowed down until the pandemic – which hit in 2020, left many Filipinos jobless.

Unemployment reached new heights in 2021 as the past administration experimented with various levels of mobility restrictions to prevent the further spread of the virus, the Philippine Star noted.

On the other hand, a recent government survey painted a better picture saying that the unemployment rate in the country decreased slightly in March with 4.7 percent of the workforce as unemployed translating to 2.42 million jobless Filipinos. This was slightly lower than the unemployment rate in February with 4.8 percent or 2.47 million unemployed Filipinos, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

The same survey also showed a sharp decrease in the underemployment rate in the country. In February, the underemployment rate was at 12.9 percent and it went down to 11.2 percent in March – the lowest underemployment rate recorded since April 2005.