The country’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent in October 2022 from 7.4 percent during the same period last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s latest labor force survey.
The jobless rate, which is also down from the 5 percent recorded in the previous month, is the lowest unemployment rate recorded for all October rounds since 2019.
Correspondingly, the employment rate increased to 95.5 percent, the highest record since the start of the pandemic.
This translates to an employment level of 47.1 million in October 2022, 3.3 million higher than in the same period last year.
“The country’s sustained recovery of the labor market backs our confidence that our policies and interventions to reinvigorate our economy are working,” Arsenio Balisacan, socioeconomic planning secretary, said in a statement yesterday.
The labor force participation rate accelerated further to 64.2 percent in October 2022 from 62.6 percent in October 2021, translating to an additional two million individuals entering the work force.
The majority of the increase in employment came from the services and industry sectors.
The agriculture sector posted employment loss, particularly in agriculture and forestry, as a result of the tropical cyclones that entered the country in October 2022, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said.
However, this contraction in the sector was slightly moderated by fishing and aquaculture which recorded 34,000 additional employment during the period.
Underemployment fell to 14.2 percent from 16.1 percent in October 2021, or 371,000 fewer underemployed persons.
“Nevertheless, the number of invisibly underemployed continues to increase as more seek to earn additional income amid the persistent rise in commodity prices,” NEDA said.
“While the employment numbers have improved, we recognize that we need to expand efforts towards creating more and high quality employment by improving workforce employability. We need to do this if we really want to pursue economic transformation,” Balisacan said.
Balisacan urged for more public-private partnerships to expand skills development and opportunities in the country.
“More than reducing the total unemployment, our goal is to ensure that the strategies of the Philippine Development Plan for 2023-2028 will be fully implemented to generate more jobs, green jobs and high quality jobs,” Balisacan said.
