METADATA

I.        ABOUT THE DATA

A.      OBJECTIVE/S OF THE SURVEY

The 2006 BLES Integrated Survey (BITS) aims to generate an integrated data set on occupational employment patterns and wage and compensation practices. 

 

B. MAIN TOPICS COVERED BY THE SURVEY

Main topics covered by the survey are employment by major occupational group; occupations that are perceived as vital, hard-to-fill, expanding, and contracting; recent changes in business and working methods and technology adoption, future trends in occupational employment and wage and compensation practices.

C. USES OF THE DATA

Data are inputs to studies on industry trends and practices and serve as basis for formulation of policies and programs on employment, conditions of work and industrial relations.

D. REFERENCE PERIOD

The reference period is June 30, 2006.

E. PERIODICITY (FREQUENCY)

Every two years.

F. COVERAGE OF THE SURVEY

Geographical: The whole country/Nationwide.

Industrial: The survey covers all establishments in the 60 non-agricultural industries with an average total employment of at least 20 persons.  Other industries that are excluded in the survey are the national postal activities; central banking; public administration and defense and compulsory social security; public education services; public medical; dental and other health services; activities of membership organizations; and extra-territorial organizations and bodies.
 
Establishments: Non-agricultural establishments employing 20 or more workers.

Persons: All employed persons (as define below).

Occupations: All occupations identified by the sample establishments that are perceived as vital, hard-to-fill, expanding, and contracting.

G. CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

Establishment:  an economic unit engaged in one or predominantly one kind of economic activity under a single ownership or control at a single fixed location, e.g., mine, factory, store, bank, restaurant. For multi-unit enterprises with different outlets and subsidiaries or whose activities are located at different locations, each branch, outlet or subsidiary is considered an establishment. For firms engaged in activities which may be physically dispersed such as mining, construction, real estate development, transportation, communication, insurance, etc., the establishment is the base from which personnel operate to carry out their activities or from which they are paid.

Employment: refers to the number of persons who worked or received pay from the establishment. This includes:

  • working owners with or without regular pay
  • salaried directors, managers and executives
  • regular and non-regular workers, e.g., probationary, casual,  contractual/project-based, seasonal, paid apprentices/learners
  • persons on paid vacation, sick, maternity, paternity, service incentive leave and other paid leaves
  • persons working away from the establishment but paid by and under its control, e.g., bus drivers
  • workers on strike

and excludes the following:

  • silent or inactive partners
  • members of the board of directors paid solely for attendance at meetings
  • workers on indefinite leave
  • laid off workers for six (6) months or more
  • persons purely on commission and without employer control
  • consultants
  • persons on retainer basis
  • contract out/agency hired workers
  • homeworkers

Employees are categorized into the following occupational group:

  • Managers, managing proprietors and supervisors – workers who plan, direct, control and coordinate the policies and activities of establishments or their internal departments or sections.  Managing owners without pay are included.
  • Professionals – workers who increase the existing stock of knowledge, apply scientific or artistic concepts and theories, teach about the foregoing in a systematic manner, or engage in any combination of these three activities.
  •  Technical and associate professionals – workers who perform mostly technical and related tasks connected with research and application of scientific or artistic concepts and operational methods and or business regulations, and assist teaching at certain educational levels.
  • Clerks – workers who record, organize, store and retrieve information related to the work in question; compute numerical, financial and statistical data; and perform number of client-oriented clerical duties.
  • Sales Workers - workers who demonstrate and sell goods in shops, establishments, stalls and market or pose as models for artistic creation and display.
  • Service workers - workers who provide personal and protective services related to travel, housekeeping, catering, personal care, or protection against unlawful acts.
  • Trades and related workers -  workers who apply their specific knowledge/skills in the field of mining, construction, form metal, set machine tools, or make fit/maintain/ repair machinery, equipment or tools produce or process food stuff, textile or wooden, metal and other articles
  • Plant and machine operators and assemblers - workers who operate and monitor industrial machinery and equipment on the spot or by remote control, drive and operate trains, motor vehicles and mobile machinery and equipment, or assemble products from component parts.
  • Laborers and Unskilled Workers – workers who perform simple tasks which mainly require the use of hand-held tools and often some physical effort.

H. UNIT OF MEASUREMENT

Numbers and percentages for employment and wage and compensation practices; and identification of occupations that are perceived as vital, hard-to-fill, expanding and contracting to the establishment.

I. CLASSIFICATIONS

Geographical: The geographic classification is based on the 2002 Philippine Standard Geographic Classification (PSGC).

Industrial: The industry classification is based on the 1994 Philippine Standard Industrial Classification (PSIC). It was patterned after the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), Rev. 3 of the United Nations, up to the 4-digit level, but with modifications to suit national situations and circumstances.

Occupational:  The occupational classification is based on the Philippine Standard Occupational Classification (PSOC) 2002 update.  It was patterned after the 1988 International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) of the International Labour Organization with modifications to suit the national context.

Employment Size: The classification of establishments according to employment size is based on the average total employment, e.g., 20-99; 100-199 and 200 and over.

Others:

  • Employment by establishment characteristics such as ownership, unionized or with collective bargaining agreement and by major occupation group
  • Wage and compensation practices according to establishment characteristics such as ownership, unionized or with collective bargaining agreement.

J. SURVEY DESIGN

Statistical unit: The establishment is the statistical or enumeration unit.  Each unit is classified to an industry that reflects its main economic activity--the activity that contributes the biggest or major portion of the gross income or revenues of the establishment.

Survey universe/sample frame:  The 2006 BLES Survey Sampling Frame (SSF2006) is an integrated list of establishments culled from the 2004 List of Establishments of the National Statistics Office and updated 2004 BLES Sampling Frame based on the status of establishments reported in the 2004 BLES Integrated Survey.  Reports on closures and retrenchments of establishments submitted to the Regional Offices of the Department of Labor and Employment were also considered in preparing the 2006 frame.

Sampling design: The BITS is a sample survey of non-agricultural establishments employing 20 persons or more where establishments are stratified by industry and employment size.  Those establishments employing at least 200 persons are covered with certainty and the rest are sampled.  The design does not consider the region as a domain to allow for more industry coverage.

In designing the survey, the margin of error (1) was fixed at 5% and the level of significance or the probability that the estimated total number of employed persons (2) is within 5% of the population total (3) was specified as 95%, that is, setting 4.  This means that the probability that the estimated total number of employed persons will differ from the true number of employed persons is 5 percent.  The desired precision for this survey can be expressed as follows:

5,

To compute for the sample size, 6, a targeted CV of 2.5% was used, that is,
7.

In allocating the samples, the 3,136 establishments employing at least 200 workers were covered with certainty as their employment represents 57 percent of total employment in population.  These establishments, however, comprise only 9.5 percent of the reference establishment population.  The remaining 4,217 establishment samples were allocated to the non-certainty stratum with employment size 20-99 and 100-199 depending on their proportion to the total establishment employment exclusive of the certainty strata, that is, 70 percent and 30 percent, respectively.  The sample sizes in each cell (industry group and employment size) in the non-certainty strata are allocated proportionately to the number of establishments.

Thus, for 2006 BITS, the total adjusted sample size is 7,630.

K. FIELD WORK

Data collection: The survey is conducted in coordination with the Regional Offices of the Department of Labor and Employment (except the National Capital Region).  On a project basis, employees are hired to personally deliver and retrieve the questionnaires from the establishments. In some instances, questionnaires are mailed to establishments in less accessible or conflict prone areas, in which case a self-addressed envelope is provided.  The establishments may also submit the accomplished questionnaires through fax.  Delivery of questionnaires starts in August of the reference year and retrieval will commence after all questionnaires have been delivered or within 10 working days from delivery to an establishment or on a date agreed upon by the contact person and the enumerator. 

Survey questionnaire: The questionnaire is made up of several parts, i.e.

Cover page - contains the address box for the establishment and other particulars;

Page 2- provides information on the survey objective and uses of the data, confidentiality clause, collection authority, authorized field personnel, coverage, periodicity and reference periods, due date and availability of results;

Part I General Information - This portion inquires on main economic activity and major products/goods or services of the establishment; establishment characteristics such as ownership (wholly Filipino, with foreign equity, wholly foreign); presence of a union and existence of a collective bargaining agreement in the establishment. Union membership and CBA coverage by sex are likewise inquired on;

Part II Employment - This section requires data on total employment and its breakdown into major occupation group (managers, managing proprietors and supervisors; professionals; technical and associate professionals; clerks; sales workers; service workers; traders and related workers; plant and machine operators and assemblers; and laborers and unskilled workers); vital occupations; hard-to-fill occupations; expanding and contracting occupations; recent changes in business and working methods and technology adoption; and future trends in occupational employment;

Part III Wage and Compensation Practices - This part inquires on methods used in fixing wages, basis of wage payment, mode and the type of payment, methods of fixing COLA, paid leave benefits, social security schemes, health care benefits and incentive schemes included in the compensation system;

Part IV Certification - this box is provided for the respondent’s name and signature, position, and telephone/fax numbers and e-mail address; time spent in answering the questionnaire; comments or suggestions (on the data it provided for the survey and improvements on the design/contents of the questionnaire); and

Part V Survey Personnel - this portion is allocated for the names of personnel involved in collection, editing and review of each questionnaire and dates when the activities were completed.

Substitution of sampling units: There is no substitution of sampling units as replacement is built-in.

L. DATA PROCESSING AND EDITING

Data are manually and electronically processed. Upon collection of accomplished questionnaires, enumerators perform field editing before leaving the establishments to ensure completeness, consistency and reasonableness of entries in accordance with the field operations manual. The forms are again checked for data consistency and completeness by their field supervisors.

The BLES personnel undertake the final review, coding of information on classifications used, data entry and validation and scrutiny of aggregated results for coherence. Questionnaires with incomplete or inconsistent entries are returned to the establishments for verification, personally or through mail.
Microsoft Access is used for data encoding and generation of validation proof lists. After checking accuracy of encoding based on the proof lists and screen validations, a conversion program using SPSS is executed to read the databases and generate error listings. After incorporating the corrections based on the error lists, output tables are then generated.

M. TYPES OF ESTIMATES

  • Establishment profile
  • Employment by major occupation group and major industry group
  • Frequency and percent distribution of vital, hard-to-fill, expanding and contracting occupations
  • Establishment’s wage and compensation practices;
  • The above data would be available by industry and employment size.

N. ESTIMATION / COMPILATION METHODOLOGY

After field operations, not all of the fielded questionnaires are accomplished.  The BLES determines the magnitude of eligibility by classifying sampled units as either ineligible or eligible.  Ineligible samples are those sampled establishments with reports of permanent closures, duplication, out of scope in employment, out of scope in industry coverage, non-location, and those that are not operational or non-existent, such as security detachments, janitorial units and power barges, which are not considered as an establishment.  In addition, non-respondents are made up of refusals, strikes or temporary closures, and those establishments whose questionnaires contain inconsistent item responses and have not replied to the verification queries by the time output table generation commences. The population is adjusted to account for these units.

Respondents are post-stratified as to industry and employment size classifications. Non-respondents are retained in their classifications.
Estimates are obtained by simple expansion, i.e., by multiplying the sample values at the cell level (industry and employment size) by the corresponding blowing-up factor which is the ratio of the eligible population of establishments to the corresponding number of responding establishments.  The estimates are then aggregated to the desired totals.

O. ADJUSTMENTS

Non-response: Non-response is taken into account in the weighing procedure.

Other bias: No adjustments are made.

Use of benchmark data: No benchmark data is used.

Use of other surveys: No other survey data are used.

Seasonal variations: Not applicable.

P. INDICATORS OF THE RELIABILITY OF THE ESTIMATES

Coverage of the sampling frame: Partially updated.

Sampling error/sampling variance: Coefficients of variation for key variables are computed.

Non-response rate: For 2006 BITS, the non-response rate in terms of eligible sampling units is 24.7%.

Non-sampling errors: These may occur due to inaccuracies in reporting by establishments and enumerators, mistakes in coding, editing and data entry. However, efforts are made to reduce non-sampling errors by careful design of the questionnaire, intensive training of survey personnel, linkages with key informants (employers’ and workers groups, government agencies and the academe) and through adoption and documentation of efficient operating procedures.

Conformity with other sources: The survey results are checked for consistency with the results of previous BITS data or related administrative data.

Estimates for non-survey years: Not relevant.

Q. HISTORY OF THE SURVEY

The BITS was initiated in 2003, which integrates the data requirements on employment, industrial relations, occupational injuries and labor cost that used to be collected by the BLES through independent surveys such as Survey on Specific Groups of Workers (SSGW), Industrial Relations at the Workplace Survey (IRWS), Occupational Injuries Survey (OIS) and Labor Cost Survey (LCS).  This integration aims to reduce respondent burden from filling out various BLES survey questionnaires, to optimize the use of resources and to improve the timeliness of information.

For the 2002/2003 BITS, the survey covers integrated data set for employment, industrial relations, occupational injuries and labor cost. However, in the 2003/2004 BITS, the survey did not cover data set for labor cost.

A total of 60 industries are covered in the 2006 BITS, in comparison to the 58 industries covered during the 2002/2003 and 2003/2004 rounds.  Pre-determined industries now total to 60 with the addition of Call Center Activities; and Medical Transcription and Related Outsourcing Activities.

Employment data for 2002/2003 and 2003/2004 BITS are disaggregated by specific groups of workers. However, for the 2006 BITS, employment data are broken down by major occupation group.

Periodicity and Reference Period: The BITS is originally conducted annually.  However, after the 2003/2004 BITS, it is conducted every two years due to budgetary constraints.  For occupational injuries and labor cost data, the reference periods were the end of each calendar quarter while for the data on employment the reference period was the end of June.  For the industrial relations practices, the reference period during the 2002/2003 BITS was June 30 while during the 2003/2003 BITS, it was calendar year 2003.

R. AVAILABLE SERIES:

The new data series starts with the 2002/2003 BITS. Nevertheless, data on selected indicators are available from past surveys such as SSGW, IRWS, OIS and LCS.

  • 2006 BITS (nationwide, covers non-agricultural establishments employing 20 or more workers, includes data set for employment by major occupation group; and wage and compensation practices)
  • 2003/2004 BITS (nationwide, covers non-agricultural establishments employing 20 or more workers, includes data set for employment by specific group of workers; industrial relations practices; and occupational injuries and diseases)
  • 2002/2003 BITS (nationwide, covers non-agricultural establishments employing 20 or more workers, includes data set for employment by specific group of workers; industrial relations practices; occupational injuries; and labor cost

II. DOCUMENTATION

A.   PERIODICITY OF DISSEMINATION
The results are released 14 months after the June reference period of the survey inquiry on employment.

B.   ADVANCE RELEASE CALENDAR
An advance release calendar that gives one-quarter-ahead notice of the approximate release date is posted in the BLES Homepage.

C.   DISSEMINATION FORMATS

Hard Copy

  1. LABSTAT Updates
  2. Philippine Industry Yearbook of Labor Statistics
  3. Yearbook of Labor Statistics
  4. Gender Statistics on Labor and Employment

Electronic

  1. BLES Homepage: http://www.bles.dole.gov.ph
  2. CD-ROM (4-in-1): Philippine Industry Yearbook of Labor Statistics; Yearbook of Labor Statistics; Gender Statistics on Labor and Employment; LABSTAT Updates

III. CONFIDENTIALITY 

The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the terms and conditions of Executive Order No. 126 (January 30, 1987) creating the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics.
While E.O. 126 is silent on the confidentiality of individual responses from surveys conducted by the BLES, it collects data under the pledge of confidentiality. A statement to this effect is printed in all the questionnaires of BLES surveys.