Forty-four percent of adult Filipinos expect the Philippine economy to “stay the same” in the next 12 months, based on the December 2023 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The survey results, which were released on Wednesday, Feb. 28, also revealed that 40 percent of adult Filipinos expect the Philippine economy to improve, while 10 expect it to worsen.

Five percent of the respondents did not provide an answer.

SWS used the term “optimists” for those who believe the Philippine economy will improve, “pessimists” for those who think it will worsen, and “no change” for those who said it will stay the same.

The percentage of economic optimists minus the percentage of economic pessimists yielded a net economic optimism score of +30, which SWS classifies as “very high” (+30 to +39).

SWS noted that the net economic optimism stayed very high, but was down to +30 in December 2023 from +35 in September 2023.

“It has been at very high levels since March 2023, following a decline from the excellent levels from December 2021 to December 2022,” SWS said in its report.

“It used to be at mediocre levels of -9 in July 2020 and -5 in September 2020 and a high +24 in November 2020, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic,” it added.

Net optimism highest in Metro Manila

As of December 2023, Metro Manila had the highest net economic optimism (+36), followed by Mindanao (+32), Balance Luzon, or Luzon outside Metro Manila (+30), and the Visayas (+25).

Net economic optimism was also highest among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies (+35), followed by 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) (+34), those who either finished elementary or had some high school education (or elementary graduates) (+24), and those who either had no formal education or some elementary education (or non-elementary graduates) (+22).

The net economic optimism scores are classified as follows: "excellent" for scores at +40 and above; "very high" for scores between +30 and +39; "high" for scores between +20 and +29; "fair" for scores between +10 and +19; "mediocre" for scores between -9 and +9; "low" for scores between –19 and –10; "very low" for scores between –29 and –20; "extremely low" for scores between -30 and -39; and "execrable" for scores between -40 and below.

The Fourth Quarter 2023 SWS Survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adult respondents nationwide.

The sampling error margins are ±2.8 percent for national percentages, and ±5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.