By Cai U. Ordinario
Construction, wholesale and retail trade, and administrative services laid off the most number of employees in the third quarter of 2015, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The results of the Labor Turnover Survey (LTS) in the National Capital Region (NCR) showed that, while there were 7.87 percent separations in the quarter, around 4.3 percent of these separations were employer-initiated.
“Separation refer[s] to terminations of employment due to a) quits or terminations initiated by the employees and b) layoffs or terminations initiated by the employers due to economic reasons [e.g., lack of market, financial losses, redundancy, end of contract] and non-economic reasons [e.g., gross negligence, absence without leave],” the PSA said.
The highest separation rate was in construction at 16.04 percent. This was comprised mostly of employer-initiated separations or layoffs at 12.65 percent.
This was followed by the wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which posted the second highest separation rate at 11.18 percent, of which, 7.42 percent was employer-initiated.
Third was the administrative and support service activities, which had a separation rate of 10.39 percent. Around 5.15 percent of this was accounted for by layoffs.
Meanwhile, the results of the LTS also showed that the 11.07- percent growth in new hires in the third quarter was mainly due to the replacement of workers.
The PSA said the accession or new hires brought by worker replacements was at 6.35 percent, higher than the 4.72 percent attributed to the expansion of businesses.
“[Accessions] refer to permanent or temporary additions to employment in the enterprise due to 1) expansion of business activity and 2) replacement of separated workers and employment resulting from changes in methods/technology of production or service,” the PSA said.
PSA data showed the highest replacement rates were recorded in administrative and support service activities; wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; and mining and quarrying.
Around seven industry groups registered higher accession rates due to expansion of business activities than replacement of workers.
These were construction; other service activities; and transportation and storage.
The LTS is a quarterly sample survey of enterprises conducted by the PSA 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 served as respondents to the Third Quarter 2015 LTS.
The sample enterprises were drawn from the 2013 NCR List of Enterprises of the PSA, which was updated by the 2013 LTS sampling frame. The retrieval rate for this quarter was placed at 99.89 percent.