The country’s underemployment rate rose in June as more Filipinos sought more or better jobs, while the jobless rate remained steady from the previous month, data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
According to the latest Labor Force Survey released yesterday, the underemployment rate went up to 14.2 percent in June 2021 from the estimated 12.3 percent in the previous month.
This translated to an increase of 918,000 employed persons who expressed 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, from 5.49 million in May to 6.41 million in June 2021.
Dennis Mapa, national statistician, said in a virtual briefing yesterday the increase in the underemployment rate was also influenced by pandemic-related restrictions, particularly in areas that had tighter levels of lockdown.
“One of the biggest contributors to the underemployment rate is Region II. In June, we saw that Region II was one of those that had a more restrictive community quarantine,” Mapa said.
“We saw that the underemployment rate doubled in the region. When we asked for data support, there were key cities that had (tighter) community quarantines, and this is one of the reasons for the increase in the underemployment rate,” he added.
The country’s unemployment rate in June meanwhile remained the same as the 7.7 percent reported a month ago, the PSA said.
In terms of magnitude, 3.76 million Filipinos 15 years old and over were unemployed in June 2021, compared to 3.73 million in May.
The labor force participation rate (LFPR) in June was registered at 65 percent or about 48.84 million Filipinos 15 years and over who were either employed or unemployed.
This is higher than the LFPR reported in May of 64.6 percent.
The PSA said employment rate in June 2021 remain unchanged at 92.3 percent from May 2021.
This means that 45.08 million were employed out of 48.84 million Filipinos in the labor force in June 2021.
The economic team said in a joint statement there was a net job creation of 0.4 million between May and June 2021.
They said that since January 2020, net job creation has totaled 2.5 million, indicating that the economy has exceeded the pre-pandemic employment level after losing 8.7 million jobs during the height of the quarantines in April 2020.
The economic team also said despite the increase in the underemployment rate from the previous month, it is still much lower than the figures recorded in the first four months of 2021.
They said lower underemployment rates in recent months point to improving job quality as restrictions in the economy were relaxed.
“The labor force survey results for June 2021 show the limits of job creation without major relaxations in quarantine restrictions, especially in the National Capital Region (NCR),” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Tina Rose Marie Canda, Budget and Management officer-in-charge.
“With the emergence of the COVID-19 Delta variant, the government has prioritized arresting the spread of this more contagious virus through more proactive quarantines in high-risk areas and an accelerated vaccination program. These actions are crucial in ensuring that economic gains in recent months will resume once we have addressed this current threat,” they added.
With the emergence of the Delta variant, the government imposed stricter community quarantine classifications for August 6 to 20 to arrest the possible spread of the new variant.
In particular, Metro Manila is placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to reduce virus transmission as more vaccine doses are administered.
Chua said last Friday based on latest estimates, each week of ECQ in NCR will cost the economy P105 billion.
He said it will also increase poor people by up to 177,000 and 444,000 more without jobs.
“These can be partly reversed if we use the three weeks to accelerate vaccination of everyone in the high-risk areas,” Chua said.
“This way, the ECQ will be an investment to pave the way for a recovery once we control Delta spread,” he added.
