Abstract

The Labor Force Survey is a nationwide survey of households conducted regularly to gather data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population. It is primarily geared towards the estimation of the levels of employment in the country.

The Labor Force Survey aims to provide a quantitative framework for the preparation of plans and formulation of policies affecting the labor market.

Geographic coverage

National coverage, the sample design has been drawn in such a way that accurate lower level classification would be possible. The 73 provinces, 14 cities of the Philippines are covered.

Analysis unit

• Person/ individual

Universe

The survey covered all persons 10 years old and over. Persons who reside in institutions are not covered.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sampling design of the Labor Force Survey adopts that of the Integrated Survey of Households (ISH), which uses a stratified two-stage sampling design. It is prepared by the NEDA Technical Committee on Survey Design and first implemented in 1984. It is the same sampling design used in the ISH modules starting in 1986.

The urban and rural areas of each province are the principal domains of the survey. In addition, the urban and rural areas of cities with a population of 150,000 or more as of 1980 are also made domains of the survey. These cities are the four cities in Metro Manila (Manila, Quezon City, Pasay and Caloocan); and the cities of Angeles, Olongapo,, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, and Iligan.

The rest of Metro Manila, i.e., Pasig, Makati and the 11 other municipalities, are treated as three separate domains. In the case of Makati, six exclusive villages are identified and samples are selected using a different scheme. These villages are Forbes Park, Bel-Air, Dasmarinas, San Lorenzo, Urdaneta and Magallanes.

Sampling Units and Sampling Frame The primary sampling units (PSUs) under the sample design are the barangays and the households within each sample barangay comprise the secondary sampling units (SSUs). The frame from which the sample barangays are drawn is obtained from the 1980 Census of Population and Housing (CPH). Hence, all the approximately 40,000 barangays covered in the 1980 CPH are part of the primary sampling frame. The sampling frame for the SSUs, that is, the households, is prepared by listing all households in each of the selected sample barangays. The listing operation is conducted regularly in the sample barangays to update the secondary sampling frame from where the sample households are selected.

Sample Size and Sampling Fraction The size of the sample is envisioned to meet the demand for fairly adequate statistics at the domain level. Taking this need into account and considering cost constraints as well, the decision reached is for a national sample of about 20,000 households. In general, the sample design results in self-weighting samples within domains, with a uniform sampling fraction of 1:400 for urban and 1:600 for rural areas. However, special areas are assigned different sampling fractions so as to obtain "adequate" samples for each. Special areas refer to the urban and rural areas of a province or large city which are small relative to their counterparts.

Selection of Samples For the purpose of selecting PSUs, the barangay in each domain are arranged by population size (as of the 1980 Census of Population) in descending order and then grouped into strata of approximately equal sizes. Four independent PSUs are drawn with probability proportional to size with complete replacement.

Secondary sampling units are selected systematiclally with a random start.

Sampling deviation

Replacement of non-responding or transferred sample households is allowed although it is still possible to have non-response cases due to critical peace and order situation or inaccessibility of the selected sample households. If there are unenumerated barangays or sample households, non-response adjustments are utilized.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The items of information presented in the April 1991 Quarterly Labor Force Survey questionnaire were derived from a structured questionnaire covering the demographic and economic characteristics of individuals. The demographic characteristics include age, sex, relationship to household head, marital status, and highest grade completed. The economic characteristics include employment status, occupation, industry, nomal working hours, total hours worked, class of worker, etc.

Cleaning operations

Data processing involves two stages: manual processing and machine processing. Manual processing refers to the manual editing and coding of questionnaires. This was done prior to machine processing which entailed code validation, consistency checks as well as tabulation.

Enumeration is a very complex operation and may happen that accomplished questionnaires may have some omissions and implausible or inconsistent entries. Editing is meant to correct these errors.

For purposes of operational convenience, field editing was done. The interviewers were required to review the entries at the end of each interview. Blank items, which were applicable to the respondents, were verified and filled out. Before being transmitted to the regional office, all questionnaires were edited in the field offices.

Coding, the transformation of information from the questionnaire to machine readable form, was likewise done in the field offices.

Machine processing involved all operations that were done with the use of a computer and/or its accessories, that is, from data encoding to tabulation. Coded data are usually in such media as tapes and diskettes. Machine editing is preferred to ensure correctness of encoded information. Except for sample completeness check and verification of geographic identification which are the responsibility of the subject matter division, some imputations and corrections of entries are done mechanically.

Response rate

The response rate for April 1991 LFS was 99.86 percent. The non-response rate of 0.14 percent was due to crticial peace and order situation or inaccessibility of the selected sample or sample households.

Sampling error estimates

Standard Error (SE) and Coefficient of Variation (CV) for the selected variables of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) for April 1991 survey round was computed using the statistical package IMPS. The selected variables referred to include the employment, unemployment and labor force population levels and rates.

A sampling error is usually measured in terms of the standard error for a particular statistic. A standard error is a measure of dispersion of an estimate from the expected value.

The SE can be used to calculate confidence intervals within which the true value for the population can be estimated, while the CV is a measure of relative variability that is commonly used to assess the precision of survey estimates.

The CV is defined as the ratio of the standard error and the estimate. An estimate with CV value of less than 10 percent is considered precise.

Tourist arrivals to the Philippines slowly picked up after significant disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. From roughly 1.48 million tourists in 2020, international visitor numbers rose to around 5.44 million in 2024. Despite the increase, this number remains much lower than the pre-pandemic level. State of inbound tourism in the Philippines  The tourism industry has shown significant improvements in the past three years, with flights returning to normal and tourists reviving their travel interests. Although domestic travelers continue to outnumber inbound ones, the number of international tourists in the Philippines has seen gradual growth recently. In 2023, tourism receipts also slightly surpassed the 2019 values. On average, international tourists in the Philippines stayed for about 11 nights in November 2023, spending less than 8,000 Philippine pesos daily. In 20234, more than a quarter of tourists arriving in the country came from South Korea, followed by those traveling from the United States and Japan. Airlines for international tourists  In 2023, most international passengers who traveled to the Philippines were carried by Philippine Airlines (PAL), which is the country’s flagship airline. The majority of visitors entered the country via Manila, followed by Cebu. Aside from PAL, international tourists also traveled through Cebu Pacific, which is a low-cost airline that offers both domestic and international flights.