LOCKDOWN measures imposed to contain the pandemic have caused the labor separation rate in Metro Manila to hit its highest level in at least a decade, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed.

Based on the PSA's labor turnover statistics (LTS), the separation rate surged 12 percent in the second quarter of 2020. The last time the separation rate was in double digit was in the first quarter of 2010 at 11.11 percent.

Separation from companies includes both terminations and resignations. Majority (84.9 percent) of separations were resignations or employee-initiated.

Some of the reasons cited by employees were: being hired by another company; personal issues; family considerations; and, the pandemic.

For those who were terminated, the PSA said the majority (65.8 percent) of these workers were temporarily let go or placed on floating status due to the pandemic.

"The main reasons cited by employers for ending the services of their workers were due to their current business conditions," the PSA said.

"Other reasons for termination were project completion and/or end of contract and retrenchment and/or downsizing with 12.4 percent and 10.2 percent of the separated workers, respectively," PSA documents read.

The PSA said employers laid-off about 3.1 percent of workers as a management prerogative towards disciplinary action.

The employers, PSA said, also cited the following for employee termination last year: health reasons; failure to meet the standards of the agency and/or establishment; and, failure rating on performance.

"The following were the behavior of workers that led to termination: absence without leave, or AWOL; serious misconduct or willful disobedience; gross and habitual neglect of duties; fraud or willful breach of trust; and, commission of crime or offense," PSA said.

Further, more than half of all establishments adopted alternative work arrangements to cope with the effects of the pandemic.

The reason for adopting these work arrangements included a decline in sales and/or revenue, which accounted for 16.9 percent of the total responses.

The data also revealed other reasons were: temporary closures and cease of operation; financial and/or income loss; lack of manpower due to restrictions; and, the decrease in client and/or customer.

"Other consequences suffered by establishments included limited transactions, difficulty in collection, lack of production, and lack of business opportunity," PSA said.

Accessions, vacancies

AS a result of the record increase in separations, the LTS contracted 7.6 percent in the second quarter of 2020. This after the labor force already posted a contraction of 1.4 percent in the first quarter last year.

Accession rates, which refer to permanent or temporary additions to employment in businesses, were still positive and posted a growth of 4.4 percent in the second quarter last year.

However, this was less than half the growth posted in the first quarter pegged at 9.3 percent and in the second quarter of 2019 at 9.5 percent.

"As the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic surged in the second quarter of 2020, employment in establishments with 20 or more workers located in NCR [National Capital Region] continued to decline by 7.6 percent," PSA said.

"This rate can be translated to a reduction of 76 workers for every 1,000 persons employed in establishments during the period," it added.

Meanwhile, the LTS data also showed that in the second quarter last year, there were 63,888 existing job openings for various occupational groups across industries.

These vacancies were mostly found in the services sector which accounted for 91.3 percent of the total during the reference period.

The PSA said the rest of the vacancies were in the industry sector, 8.6 percent, and in the agriculture sector, 0.1 percent.

Across occupational groups, data showed about two-thirds of the total job vacancies were available for clerical support workers and professional workers.

The other job openings include technicians and associate professionals; managers; crafts and related trades; Plant and machine operators and assemblers; sales and service workers; and a few elementary occupations and skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers.

The LTS was conducted semi-annually covering two-quarter information from the establishments based in the National Capital Region (NCR). A total of 1,206 establishments served as respondents in the conduct of the 2020 LTS.

For the first-quarter and second-quarter rounds, information on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the day-to-day operation of the establishments and the coping mechanisms they employed to address the identified effects were gathered.

The field operation was conducted from August to October 2020; thus data gathering, vis-à-vis the results generated, were greatly affected by the implementation of community quarantines due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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