Close to 50 percent of Filipino adults expect the Philippine economy to improve in the next 12 months, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted in December 2022.
In its nationwide survey from Dec. 10 to 14, 2022, SWS found that 48 percent of Filipinos said they expect the country’s economy to improve, 33 percent said it will stay the same, and 9 percent said it will get worse.
SWS used the term “optimists” for those who believe the economy will get better, “neutral” for those who say it will stay the same, and “pessimists” for those who think the economy will worsen.
The resulting net economic optimism score (percentage of economic optimists minus percentage of economic pessimists) is +40, classified by SWS as “excellent.”
According to SWS, the latest net economic optimism score was one point below the “excellent” +41 in October 2022.
“It has been at excellent levels since December 2021, ranging from +40 to +50. It used to be mediocre -9 in July 2020, mediocre -5 in September 2020, and high +24 in November 2020, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic,” SWS said.
4th Quarter 2022 Social Weather Stations Survey (COURTESY OF SWS)
“As of December 2022, net economic optimism is highest in Metro Manila (+47), followed by Mindanao (+45), Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila) (+40), and the Visayas (+27),” it added.
Compared to October 2022, net economic optimism stayed “excellent” in Metro Manila, although down by five points from +52 to +47.
It also stayed excellent in Balance Luzon, although down by nine points from +49 to +40, while it stayed “fair” in the Visayas, up by two points from +25 to +27.
Meanwhile, it rose from “very high” to “excellent” in Mindanao from +32 to +45
Net optimism hardly changes across educational attainment
SWS noted that the net economic optimism tends to be higher among those with more years of formal education.
“It is higher among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies (or college graduates) (+51) than those who either finished junior high school, had some vocational schooling, had some senior high school, finished senior high school, completed vocational school, or attended some college (or junior high school graduates) (+40), those who either had no formal education or some elementary education (or non-elementary graduates) (+37), and those who either finished elementary or had some high school education (or elementary graduates) (+35),” it said.
The 4th Quarter 2022 SWS survey was conducted from Dec. 10 to 14 using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults, 18 years old and above, nationwide.
It has sampling error margins of +/-2.8 percent for national percentages and +/-5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.