Philippines underemployment rate drops to record low in 10 years

Source: Xinhua | 2020-03-07

The Philippine labor market continued to record positive gains as underemployment rate fell to its lowest in a decade on top of an increased employment rate, the country's National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said on Friday.

The January round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the country's underemployment rate, which tells the proportion of those already employed but still wanting more work, dropped further to 14.8 percent from 15.6 percent in January 2019.

"While the results of the latest LFS showed remarkable improvements in the Philippine labor market, the government should continually improve its efforts towards providing an environment conducive to the creation of more and better employment opportunities," Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said.

Pernia noted that the employment rate rose to 94.7 percent, which brings the total number of employed Filipinos to 42.7 million in January 2020.

Citing PSA data, Pernia said the employment growth rate is up by 4.0 percent, or an estimated 1.6 million additional employment from the same period in 2019.

Pernia further said the unemployment rate remained consistently low, maintaining its 5.3-percent mark from January 2018 up to the present.

Data also showed that labor force participation improved to 61.7 percent, reflecting confidence in the economy with improved labor market situation. The labor market attracted 1.7 million labor entrants, which largely came from the younger working-age group of 15 to 24 years old, data showed.