NSCB Resolution No. 15
Series of 2003
MONITORING OF OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT
IN THE LABOR FORCE SURVEY
WHEREAS, overseas employment plays an important role in helping ease the pressure of unemployment in the country and in boosting the national economy through the foreign exchange remittances generated by the overseas workers, which account for about ten percent of the gross national product as of 2002;
WHEREAS, the size of the country’s overseas employment has grown from 969 thousand in 1998 to more than a million in 2002 as shown by the results of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) and the expected increase in the demand for skilled labor and professional workers abroad will accelerate its growth in the future;
WHEREAS, there is a need to regularly monitor overseas employment to ascertain its impact on the country’s labor market and to formulate sound policies and programs for the protection and welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families;
WHEREAS, the monitoring of the country’s economically active population or labor force, which is being carried out quarterly by the National Statistics Office (NSO) through the conduct of the LFS, is the most appropriate vehicle available for monitoring overseas employment, being a nationwide survey that can situate the effect of overseas employment in the total employment situation of the country;
WHEREAS, the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), in consultation with the NSO, has developed a concept paper that outlines the procedure for the measurement and inclusion of overseas employment in the LFS;
WHEREAS, the concept paper on the proposed monitoring procedure has been presented to stakeholders and social partners in a roundtable discussion held on 18 November 2003 and they have agreed to endorse it for approval, subject to some revisions, notwithstanding the operational problems that may initially arise, with the recommendation that the details of these problems be addressed by the Interagency Committee on Labor, Income and Productivity Statistics (IACLIPS) and its Technical Working Group on Labor and Employment Statistics (TWGLES);
WHEREAS, the IACLIPS and the TWGLES have conducted meetings to evaluate the proposed monitoring procedure and have agreed to endorse it for adoption, incorporating the recommendations raised during the roundtable discussion;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED AS IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that the Board approve the recommendation of the IACLIPS and its TWGLES for the adoption of the proposed procedure for monitoring overseas employment using LFS data as starting point, to be implemented in the following manner:
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The NSO shall continue to release the regular data series on labor force being generated through the quarterly conduct of the LFS.
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In addition, overseas employment statistics shall be published starting with the April 2004 LFS round in the form of a supplementary table (with all the necessary caveats) based on a format and schedule to be determined by NSO. The initial release of the data will include a worked-back series from 1998.
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Prior announcement on the release of the new set of indicators on overseas employment shall be posted in the NSO website.
BE IT RESOLVED FURTHER, that the IACLIPS, TWGLES, and the NSCB Technical Staff study further the various issues raised during the roundtable consultation based on the attached action plan (Annex BR-15-2003-01). These issues include: (1) the review of the survey design of the Survey of Overseas Filipinos (SOF) as a rider survey of the LFS; (2) monitoring of unemployed OFWs and the employment status of the members of households who joined the overseas workers abroad; and (3) study of the potential uses of administrative data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Bureau of Immigration (BI), the Commission on Filipino Overseas (CFO), and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as alternative sources of overseas employment statistics.
Approved this 12th day of December 2003, in Pasig City.
Attested by:
ROMULO A. VIROLA
Secretary General