The country’s unemployment rate inched up in August as more Filipinos joined the labor force, data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
According to the PSA’s latest labor force survey released yesterday, the unemployment rate in August was recorded at 5.3 percent, slightly up from the previous month’s 5.2 percent.
It however showed improvement from August of last year’s 8.1 percent.
Specifically, the number of unemployed persons in August 2022 increased to 2.68 million from 2.6 million in July 2022, registering a month-on-month increase of 78,640 unemployed individuals.
However, the number of unemployed persons in August 2022 was lower by 1.2 million compared with the number of unemployed persons in August 2021.
“When we see a substantial increase in the labor force participation, a lot find jobs but there’s also a portion that remain unemployed. Most of those who are unemployed are the new entrants, or those who are entering the labor force for the first time,” Dennis Mapa, national statistician, said in a briefing yesterday.
The PSA reported that the labor force participation rate (LFPR) in August 2022 was estimated at 66.1 percent, the highest reported rate since January of this year. In July, it was at 65.2 percent.
This translates to 557,000 more who entered the labor force in August from the previous month.
The LFPR in August 2021 was registered at 63.6 percent.
Meanwhile, the employment rate in August 2022 was estimated at 94.7 percent. This was higher than the recorded employment rate in the same period last year, which was estimated at 91.9 percent, but was slightly lower than the 94.8 percent estimate in July 2022.
In terms of magnitude, the number of employed persons was estimated at 47.87 million while it was at 44.23 million for the same period last year. In July 2022, the number of employed persons was 47.39 million.
Lastly, the underemployment rate in August 2022 was recorded at 14.7 percent. This was equivalent to 7.03 million employed persons who expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with longer hours of work.
In July 2022, this was registered at 13.8 percent, while in August 2021, the estimate was the same at 14.7 percent.
