The Occupational Wages Survey (OWS) is a designated statistics under Executive Order No. 352 dated 01 July, 1996, and is recognized as one of the important statistical activities in the country that generates critical data as inputs to decision-making of the government sector and the private sector.

The OWS measures the wage disparities across occupations and industries within the country. It also identifies inequalities between workers in low-wage and high-wage occupations.

Objectives

The OWS aims to generate wage statistics that serve as critical inputs for policies related to wage and salary administration. These wage statistics are particularly crucial in matters concerning wage-fixing, price policies, and collective bargaining negotiations.

Statistics on wage rates are useful economic indicators and inputs to wage, income, productivity, and price policies, and in wage fixing in collective bargaining. Occupational wage rates are used to measure wage differences across occupations and industries, specifically wage differentials and wage inequality in typically low wage and high wage occupations. Industry data on basic pay and allowances can be used to measure wage differentials across industries, for investment decisions, and as reference in periodic adjustments of minimum wages. The wage data collected from the OWS can be used for international comparability as the industry codes and occupation codes used in the survey are the current standard codes used internationally.

Specifically, the OWS data on the Average Monthly Occupational Wage Rates of Selected Occupations is included as one of the variables listed and committed by the Philippine government to be regularly generated and disseminated under the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) of the International Monetary Fund. The SDDS serves as reference to member countries in the dissemination of economic and financial data.