THAT’S ACCORDING to the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations, commissioned by the BusinessWorld daily, and reported on Wednesday in all major newspapers except one.

According to the SWS survey undertaken March 4 to 7, 27.2 percent of respondents reported they were jobless. The downward trend is pretty clear: the unemployment rate was 23.5 percent in November 2010, and 20.5 percent when President Aquino assumed office.
If the SWS findings are extrapolated to represent national data, the March jobless rate means that Mr. Aquino has presided over an economy in which in just nine months 2.8 million were added to the ranks of the jobless, now totaling 11.3 million.

It will get worse by the time Mr. Aquino marks his first year in office. UP economist Raul Fabella was quoted as saying that the unemployment rate will rise in June as college students who graduated end of March normally do not immediately get work.

Based on the SWS figures, Mr. Aquino now has the distinction of being the first President in recent decades whose first year in office is marked by the steep worsening of unemployment.

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