Pursuant to PSA Board resolution No. 8 series of 2020 which approves the conduct of the monthly Labor Force Survey (LFS), the National Statistician, Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa issued an office memorandum on January 11, 2021, directing every Provincial Statistical Office of the PSA to conduct a monthly Labor Force Survey starting February 2021. This is in response to the call of the Philippine Economic Team for a high frequency statistical information on the Philippine labor market and to have a better understanding on the nature of the Philippine economy over the coming months which is severely affected by the health crisis brought about by the on-going covid-19 pandemic.
Thus, in the month of February 2021, the first ever monthly LFS was conducted all throughout the country. This monthly LFS, an abridged version of the regular quarterly LFS with additional questions related to the covid-19 pandemic, was aimed to generate the core labor and employment indicators including some covid-19 relevant indicators which would serve as the basis for the formulation of effective government policies and proper program implementations. It also utilized one replicate of the 2013 Master Sample comprising of approximately 10,700 sample housing units as its samples. This sample size was deemed sufficient to generate a reliable national level labor and employment statistics.
As for Cebu, the province had a total sample of around 400 housing units distributed within 26 sample barangays. Eight (8) Statistical Researchers (SR) were hired to do the task of enumerating all the sample housing units. The enumeration would always start on the 8th day of the month and to be completed within ten days.
The monthly LFS, also called in between quarterly LFS, shall be conducted all throughout the year. However, this does not affect the regular quarterly LFS. The quarterly LFS with a sample size of approximately 44,000 HUs will still be conducted in the months which begin the quarter as it is designed to generate labor and employment data up to the regional level. Moreover, provincial and HUC level labor and employment statistics can still be achieved after completing the four quarterly surveys of the year and to be reported annually.