48% expect better economy this year
Credit to Author: Janvic Mateo| Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0800
MANILA, Philippines — Almost half of adult Filipinos expect the country’s economy to improve this year, according to a recent survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).
Results of the Dec. 10 to 14 survey released Thursday night showed that 48 percent of the respondents expected a better economy in the next 12 months.
It was two points lower than the 50 percent obtained in a similar survey conducted in October.
Meanwhile, the number of those who expected the economy to worsen stayed at nine percent, while those who said that it would stay the same increased from 30 percent to 33 percent. The remaining 10 percent of the respondents said they did not know.
The latest survey resulted in a “net economic optimism” score of +40, classified as “excellent” by the polling firm. It was obtained by subtracting those who said that it would worsen from those who said that it would improve in the next 12 months.
The latest net economic optimism was down a point from the “excellent” +41 obtained in October.
Optimism with the economy reached its highest in recent years last June, a month after the elections, when 56 percent of the respondents said they expected the economy to improve within a year. About six percent said at that time that they expected it to worsen.
The record was in June 2016, also after the presidential elections, when 60 percent said they expected the economy to improve while only four percent said it would worsen.
Compared to the October 2022 survey, the latest net economic optimism score increased among respondents in the Visayas and Mindanao, but fell in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
It was highest among those in Metro Manila at +47 (from +52), followed by those in Mindanao at +45 (from +32), Balance Luzon at +40 (from +49) and the Visayas at +27 (from +25).
Net economic optimism was highest among college graduates at +51 (from +49), followed by high school graduates at +45 (from +42), non-elementary graduates at +37 (from +33) and elementary graduates at +35 (from +40).
The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 respondents and has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent for the national percentages.