The Philippines' Social Security System (SSS) has added 2.4 million new members from January to the end of July this year, more than double the 923,000 new members it signed up during the same period a year ago.
Rolando Macasaet, president and chief executive officer of SSS, says the fund typically adds one million new members annually. He attributes the increase to the aggressive campaigns SSS organised this year.
“I challenged the team to achieve two million new members in the first half of this year. SSS took the challenge and even went the extra mile. In the first six months, we hit our year’s target of two million new members, a positive result of our massive membership and coverage drives throughout the country,” Macasaet says in a statement on September 30.
He also expects the fund could achieve 4-5 million new members by the end of this year.
Voltaire Agas, executive vice president at SSS, says the increase is largely driven by the number of new self-employed members, which jumped to 419,000 from January to the end of July 2024, from 112,000 in the same period last year.
“Additionally, the number of new overseas foreign worker members more than doubled, rising to 10,300 in 2024 from just over 5,000 last year,” Agas says in the statement.