36 The right to social security of the workers in the informal economy/ sector Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) The data provided by the PSA Assistant National Statistician Wilma Guillen stems from the efforts of the agency to capture informal employment under the Labor Force Survey (LFS). The LFS is a nationwide quarterly survey of households that gathers data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population. It also aims to provide a quantitative framework for the preparation of plans and formulation of policies affecting the labor market.”103 Such policies affect the creation and generation of employment and livelihood opportunities, projection of human resource requirements, and identification of employment and training needs of the populace. It also provides statistics on the levels of employment, underemployment, and unemployment for the country and in the regions, which can help identify available human resources for economic development. The LFS is designed to collect information on the following:104 • Distribution of household population 15 years old and over, by employment status, by sex, and age group; • Distribution of employed persons by major occupation group, major industry group, class of worker, number of hours worked, highest grade completed, among other; • Distribution of underemployed persons by total hours worked, major occupation group, class of worker and by sex; and • Distribution of unemployed persons by age group, highest grade completed, number of weeks looking for work, job search method and by sex. Concerning collecting information on the informal sector, the last survey took place in 2008. According to Ms. Guillen, this was a large nationwide pilot but there was no follow-up survey ensued. She also mentioned that in terms of fully capturing the “informal sector” in the LFS, they first need to have a formal definition of what the Informal Sector is105 so that they can contextualize this at the national level. There are already initial works on discussing the conceptual and statistical framework for the informal sector. Id. Id. 105 Id. 103 104