Philippines (1)

Title of the survey

Employment, Hours and Earnings Survey (EHES)

Organization responsible

The Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (Department of Labor and Employment), in cooperation with the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Periodicity of the survey

Quarterly.

Objectives of the survey

To provide quarterly data on employment trends (labour turnover, vacancies and retrenchment of workers due to economic reasons), which are used as an indicator of job absorption in the organized sector of the economy; and
to generate quarterly statistical trends of overtime earnings and hours of work of production or construction workers and employees below managers and executives, in order to reflect the labour market effects of business fluctuations on these workers.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Labour turnover, overtime and premium pay, hours of work, vacancies and separations.

Reference period

Employment: the pay period nearest the 15th of each month of each quarter. Overtime pay and hours of work: the whole quarter.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

All branches of economic activity, except agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing; public schools and hospitals; international organizations and other extraterritorial bodies.

Establishments

Establishments with 20 or more persons engaged.

Persons

For the analysis of labour turnover, vacancies and layoffs: all persons engaged. For the analysis of hours of work and overtime earnings: production or construction workers and employees below managers and executives

Occupations

Data are not collected on individual occupations.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Data are collected separately on total employment and production or construction workers and other employees. Total employment refers to all persons working in or for the establishment during the pay period nearest the 15th of each month during the quarter and receiving pay, as well as those working away from, but paid by and under the control of, the establishment. Included are working owners, unpaid workers and paid employees. Also included are persons temporarily absent from work, but present on payroll, because of paid vacation or holiday, sickness or injury, or for any other reason. Excluded are workers receiving commissions only; managers and directors paid solely for their attendance at Board of Directors' meetings; silent or inactive partners and unpaid apprentices and learners.

Production or construction workers refer to all paid employees directly engaged in the establishment's production activities. Included are manual workers, clerical personnel and working foremen who fabricate, process, assemble, construct, install, etc. Excluded are supervisory employees above working foremen level.

Other employees are all paid employees below managers and executives, not reported as production or construction workers. Included are sales and administrative personnel, workers in transport, banking, finance, insurance, educational, social and community services, etc.

Statistics of employment as such are not derived from this survey, but from the Quarterly Survey of Establishments conducted by the NSO. Employment data are used to compile estimates of labour turnover, average weekly hours of work, etc.

Earnings

Data are collected on total overtime and premium pay of production or construction workers and other employees below managers and executives during the reference quarter.

Total overtime and premium pay refers to remuneration for work beyond eight hours on ordinary working days plus payment for work carried out during rest days or holidays.

Wage/salary rates

Not relevant.

Hours of work

Data are collected separately on:

Total hours actually worked on ordinary working days, excluding overtime, during the reference quarter. They include hours worked during rest days or holidays, and rest periods or coffee breaks of between five and twenty minutes. Non-compensated meal breaks are excluded.
Total non-working hours paid for, i.e. equivalent hours paid for but not worked, such for rest days, holidays and paid leave.
Total overtime on ordinary working days and total hours worked during rest days or holidays, i.e. hours worked beyond eight hours on ordinary working days, and total hours worked when workers are required to work during their rest days or holidays.

Data on hours of work are collected for production or construction workers and other employees below managers and executives only.

International recommendations

Data collection is limited to overtime and assimilated earnings. It excludes all other components of earnings, i.e. remuneration for normal time worked or work done, allowances, bonuses and gratuities, and earnings in kind. Statistics of average earnings as such are not compiled from this survey.

Data are collected on the components of hours paid for. Statistics of hours actually worked are computed by deducting hours paid for but not worked from the total number of hours paid for. The concept of hours actually worked conforms to the international guidelines.

Classifications

Industrial

The Philippine Standard Industrial Classification (PSIC) is used, which is linked to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev. 2, 1968, at the four-digit level.

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

The survey data are classified by region and employment size.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The sampling unit is the establishment, i.e. an economic unit which engages, under a single ownership or control, in one or predominantly one kind of economic activity at a fixed single location (e.g. a factory, mine, plant, bank, restaurant, school, supermarket, barber or beauty shop, etc.).

Survey universe / sample frame

A Listing of Establishments which covers all types and sizes of registered establishments.

The frame is updated every year using information from administrative records such as reports from the Security and Exchange Commission, reports from current establishment surveys, by field enumeration and using the results of the five-yearly census of establishments.

Sample design

The EHES is a rider questionnaire to the Quarterly Survey of Establishments (QSE) of the National Statistics Office and it follows the same sampling design, i.e. a stratified simple random sample of establishments with 20 or more persons engaged.

All establishments with 200 or more persons engaged are included in the sample. Other establishments are stratified by region and four-digit industry classification, and the sample is drawn from each stratum using the following sampling fractions:

establishments with 100 to 199 persons engaged: 1/2,
establishments with 50 to 99 persons engaged: 1/5,
establishments with 20 to 49 persons engaged: 1/10.

A minimum sample of three establishments is drawn from each cell (four-digit industry classification and region).

The survey covers 36 per cent of all non-agricultural establishments with 20 or more persons engaged, and 76 per cent of total employment in such establishments.

Field work

Data collection

The survey is conducted through personal interviews by field personnel of the National Statistics Office, immediately after the end of the reference quarter.

Survey questionnaire

It is in the form of tabulated inquiries, and instructions and definitions of terms are found on the back page. It comprises eleven sections, as follows:

section I: data on employment,
sections II to IV: hours of work and their components,
section V: overtime and premium payment,
section VI: labour turnover (i.e. new hires and separations, by reason),
section VII: vacancies,
sections VIII to X: respectively, employer-initiated separations for economic reasons, total paid employees on rotation or reduced working time due to economic reasons, and main reason for retrenchment due to economic reasons only,
section XI: the main reason for significant changes in any data.

A manual of instructions is also available to the interviewers.

Substitution of sampling units

Not available.

Data processing and editing

The responsibility for data processing lies with the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics. Data are checked and edited through field work (by the NSO) and manual editing. Geographic region, industry and employment size are coded manually. Data are processed using microcomputers.

Types of estimates

labour turnover rates, and accession and separation rates,
average weekly hours actually worked and average weekly overtime hours,
number of vacancies, number of workers separated and on rotation or reduced working time due to economic reasons.

Construction of indices

None.

Weighting of sample results

Estimates start at the cell level, i.e. by region, three- and four-digit industry group, employment size, and type of worker (for hours of work) or reason (for accessions and separations). The following formula is used for the estimates of hours of work:

where:

H_Rijw: estimated total hours of work in region R, industry i, and size j of type of worker w,
h_Rijw: sample hours of work in region R, industry i and size j of type of worker w,
e_Rijw: corresponding sample employment in region R, etc.,
E_Rijw: estimated employment in region R, industry i and size j of type of worker w.

Benchmark data are obtained from the results of the Quarterly Survey of Establishments.

The estimated averages at any level are derived by dividing estimated hours of work by the corresponding estimated employment of type of worker w.

The procedures involved for estimating the number of accessions, number of separations, number of vacancies, etc. are similar.

Adjustments

Non-response

None.

Other bias

None.

Use of benchmark data

Benchmark employment data are obtained from the results of the Quarterly Survey of Establishments.

Seasonal variations

None.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

Not available.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not computed.

Non-response rate

Not computed.

Non-sampling errors

Not evaluated.

Conformity with other sources

The labour turnover rates are compared with the results of the Labour Force Survey.

Available series

Published tables include detailed listings and cross-tabulations of:

labour turnover rates, accession rates and separation rates, by region, employment size, major industry group and reason,
average weekly hours actually worked by major industry group, region, employment size and type of worker,
number of establishments resorting to termination, rotation or reduction in working time and workers affected, by region, industry group, reason and employment size,
job vacancies by major industry group, region and employment size.

History of the survey

The Employment, Hours and Earnings Survey started in its present form in 1989. In 1989, it covered establishments with 10 or more persons engaged. In 1990, establishments with 10 to 19 persons engaged were excluded from the scope of the survey, and the questionnaire was redesigned.

Documentation

Department of Labor and Employment: Labor Turnover, Hours of Work, Layoffs and Vacancy Statistics (annual, Manila).

idem Yearbook of Labor Statistics (annual, ibid.).

Idem Current Labor Statistics (monthly, ibid.).

Preliminary results of the survey are available four months after the reference quarter, and final results, six months after the reference quarter.

The survey results may also be made available on diskette and magnetic tape, upon request.

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

The publication and release of data are subject to confidentiality rules: information for strata with less than three establishments is not released.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

Data on average weekly hours actually worked by employees in non-agricultural activities and specific industries, since 1989, are published in Tables 11, 12A, 13, 14 and 15 of the Yearbook of Labour Statistics.

Statistics of average weekly hours actually worked published in the same tables for the years prior to 1989 are derived from the Annual Survey of Establishments and cover production workers only.