By Fernan Angeles
THE global pandemic forced over 180,000 Filipinos to lose their jobs, said the Department of Labor and Employment.
Government data released by DOLE’s job placement monitoring unit showed most of them lost their jobs due in view of company scale-down, retrenchment and closure.
The National Capital Region recorded the highest number with a total 89,531 Filipinos losing their jobs, followed by Region IV-A.
A recent poll of the Social Weather Stations revealed that adult joblessness in the country rose to a record-high of 45.5 percent in July with half of the unemployed saying they lost their jobs during the health crisis.
According to the results of the SWS National Mobile Phone Survey, adult joblessness rose by 28 percentage points from 17.5 percent in December 2019, to overtake the previous record high of 34.4 percent in March 2012.
The SWS qualified jobless adults as those who voluntarily left their jobs, those seeking jobs for the first time, or those who lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control.
Malacañang, meanwhile, said the record-high adult joblessness in July beat expectations as the country’s labor situation could have been worse amid the pandemic.