Wage hike, inflation, jobs top concerns for Pinoys—Pulse Asia

Applicants look at the list of jobs at the Labor Day Job Fair by the Department of Labor and Employment. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

Economic issues like increased salary for workers, controlled inflation, and more jobs still topped the list of urgent national concerns for Filipinos, according to a recent survey by Pulse Asia.

The March 2017 survey showed that Filipinos were most concerned about improving the pay of workers (43 percent), controlling inflation (41 percent), and creating more jobs (39 percent).

Increasing the pay of workers also emerged as the only issue cited by the majority across geographic areas and socioeconomic classes, receiving as high as 52 percent from Visayans.

“In Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon, the residents are most concerned about workers’ pay (46% and 41%, respectively), jobs (40% and 35%, respectively, inflation (36% and 39%, respectively), corruption (35% and 32%, respectively), and criminality (35% and 29%, respectively). Among Mindanaoans, the top urgent national concerns are inflation (48%), jobs (39%), and workers’ pay (38%),” Pulse Asia said.

The economic issues were followed by fighting corruption in government (31 percent), fighting criminality (28 percent), and reducing poverty (27 percent).

Other national concerns included in the survey were promoting peace (18 percent), enforcing the rule of law (16 percent), and protecting the environment (15 percent), controlling rapid population growth (11 percent), reducing the amount of taxes paid by citizens (11 percent), protecting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (8 percent), and defending national territorial integrity (6 percent).

Filipinos are least concerned about terrorism and charter change with three percent each, Pulse Asia said.

“Meanwhile, in Class ABC, the leading concerns are criminality (38%), inflation (35%), jobs (35%), poverty (33%), workers’ pay (30%), corruption (30%), and peace (20%). In Classes D and E, the most often cited concerns are workers’ pay (44% and 46%, respectively), inflation (40% and 44%, respectively), and jobs (39% and 41%, respectively),” it added.

The same survey also showed that the Duterte administration got majority approval ratings on most of the said issues, except for an eight-percentage point drop in the level of approval for its effort to defend national territorial integrity.

The administration sealed high approval scores in its efforts to fight criminality (79%) and respond to the needs of areas affected by calamities (77%), protecting the welfare of OFWs (71%), fighting corruption (70%), promoting peace (69%), protecting the environment (68%), enforcing the rule of law (68%), creating jobs (58%), defending the national territory from foreigners (57%), and increasing workers’ pay (55%).

“It is only in the areas of reducing poverty and controlling inflation where the current dispensation fails to obtain majority approval figures as it scores approval ratings of 50% and 45%, respectively. It may be noted that inflation is one of the leading urgent national concerns of Filipinos in March 2017 (41%),” Pulse Asia said. “Conversely, Filipinos are most critical of the administration’s initiatives to control inflation (22%) and least inclined to disapprove of its disaster response efforts (3%).”

“Filipinos’ assessment of the work done by the Duterte administration is essentially unchanged between December 2016 and March 2017. There is only one significant change this period and that is the 8-percentage point drop in the level of approval for the administration’s efforts to defend the national territory against foreigners,” it added.

The drop comes amid the controversy surrounding the reported presence of Chinese vessels in the mineral-rich Benham Rise and the upcoming bilateral talks between Chinese and Philippine officials over the South China Sea dispute. JE/rga