A Social Weather Stations survey released earlier this week found that 69 percent of Filipinos struggle to find jobs despite signs of recovery in the labor market.

The survey, conducted from 26 March to 29 March, involved 1,200 Filipino adults. It also indicated that only 11 percent of the respondents considered finding a job easy.

Additionally, 16 percent of those surveyed stated that finding employment was neither easy nor hard.

The findings of the SWS survey paint a bleak picture of the labor market, which is still struggling to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

Despite the reopening of the domestic economy, accompanied by high inflation rates, the data demonstrates that Filipinos are increasingly desperate to make ends meet and take advantage of opportunities in the workforce.

SWS indicated that since 2011, Filipinos needed help finding employment. Still, until the pandemic in 2020 that left thousands of people without a job, sentiment toward the challenges of finding employment had been decreasing.

SWS said 1,200 Filipinos at least 18 years old from around the country participated in the March survey, with a ±2.8 percent sampling error margin.

In a face-to-face interview, the respondents were asked whether they thought finding a job was “easy,” “hard,” “neither” or they “don’t know.”

They were also questioned if they anticipated “more jobs,” “no change” in the number of open positions, “fewer jobs” or “don’t know” in the upcoming year.