The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that there were more layoffs than quits, or employee-initiated separations, in the first three months of the year.
Data from the Labor Turnover Survey (LTS) of the PSA showed that employer-initiated separations were at 6.11 percent, while quits were at 3.36 percent in the January-to-March period of 2014.
“Weak hiring and more separations prevailed in construction; wholesale and retail trade; professional, scientific and technical activities; and mining and quarrying,” the PSA said.
“Sluggish employment can be attributed to the lower economic growth rate registered in the first quarter of the current year as compared a year ago—5.6 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively,” it added.
The PSA data showed that more terminations were observed in sectors such as wholesale and retail trade, where terminations were at 15.45 percent, while quits were only at 3.63 percent.
Data showed that mining and quarrying followed with terminations at 14.63 percent and quits only at 1.18 percent; while construction data showed 11.06 percent terminations and 4.45 percent quits during the period.
Other subsectors that exhibited the same trend were manufacturing, which experienced 1.78 percent terminations and 1.48 percent quits; as well as arts, entertainment and recreation, where terminations reached 4.49 percent, and quits, 2.24 percent.
The PSA said subsectors that registered more quits than terminations in the January-to-March period this year included administrative and support service activities, where quits reached 6.44 percent and terminations were only at 4.98 percent.
Other sectors that registered the same trend included real-estate activities, where quits reached 4.26 percent and terminations were only at 0.66 percent; as well as human health and social activities, where quits were at 3.94 percent and terminations were at 0.26 percent.
“Measured in terms of labor turnover or the percent difference between accession rate and separation rate, employment growth was negligible at 0.59 percent in the first quarter of 2014,” the PSA said.
“Nevertheless, this figure is slightly better compared with the 2013 first-quarter rate of -0.02 percent. The data series suggests that first-quarter survey is often associated with low turnover rates,” the PSA added.
Data showed that the accession rate was at 10.06 percent, slightly above the separation rate of 9.47 percent. This meant that the labor turnover rate during the period was only at 0.59 percent.
The PSA said this only means an addition of six workers per 1,000 employed. This is composed of 101 workers per 1,000 employed added to the enterprise work force due to expansion or replacement, and only 95 workers per 1,000 employed were laid off or quit their jobs.
The government said two industries with big employment base were among the top gainers this quarter.
These were administrative and support-service activities, where the labor turnover rate was at 3.42 percent and manufacturing with 2.16 percent.
“The highest turnover rate was observed in agriculture, forestry and fishery [8.73 percent],” the PSA, however, said.
The LTS is a quarterly sample survey of enterprises conducted by the PSA-Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics since the third quarter of 2002.
The survey aims to capture “job creations” and “job displacements” in large business enterprises based in Metro Manila by collecting quarterly data on accessions and separations of workers. A total of 921 enterprises based in Metro Manila served as
respondents to the first quarter 2014 Labor Turnover survey.
The sample enterprises were drawn from the 2013 NCR List of Enterprises of the PSA-National Statistics Office, which was updated by the 2013 LTS Sampling frame. The retrieval rate for this quarter was placed at 85.5 percent.