Metro Manila, Philippines — Around 69% of Filipino adults said they find it hard to get a job these days, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey has reported.

According to the SWS survey released on Thursday, only 11% of the respondents said job hunting is easy now.

It also found that 16% said it was neither easy nor hard and 4% said they don’t know.

“Finding a job has always been hard since 2011,” the pollster said in its graphic card.

Meanwhile, half of the respondents were found to be optimistic that that there will be more jobs in the next 12 months.

The SWS reported that 26% believed there will be no changes while 10% said there will be fewer work vacancies.

The remaining 14% said they do not know.

“Since 2009, except during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Filipinos have been more optimistic about job availability,” the SWS added.

A total of 1,200 Filipino adults nationwide were interviewed in-person on March 26 to 29.

SWS said the study had a sampling error margin of ±2.8%.

The pollster also found that at least 19% of the labor force, or 8.7 million Filipinos, are unemployed.

According to the latest estimates from the Philippine Statistics Authority, some 2.42 million Filipinos were unemployed in March.