National jobless rate eases to 6.5% in July

MANILA, Philippines - More Filipinos gained employment as of July this year, translating to a drop in the jobless rate to 6.5 percent from last year’s 6.7 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority said in a report.

According to the PSA, a line agency of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the number of unemployed Filipinos went down in July  as the market continues to reflect the continued strength of the economy.

“The favorable economic growth of the country certainly drove an encouraging response from the labor market in July 2015. This follows a similar trend in January and April 2015 where unemployment also declined relative to 2014,” said Economic Planning Secretary and NEDA chief Arsenio M. Balisacan.

He said for the rest of the year, the country is at par in terms of achieving the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) target of 6.6-6.8 percent for unemployment.

The services sector, which makes up more than half of the total employed, remains the top jobs generator, followed by the industry sector, backed by strong public and private construction.

A broad-based increase in the number of full-time workers was likewise observed across majority of the production sectors, coupled with a significant decrease in the number of part-time workers. More remunerative and stable wage and salary jobs also increased by 1.5 million of which, 1.1 million workers were from private establishments, Balisacan noted.

However, he said the stellar performance of the two sectors were not enough to offset the debilitating impact of El Niño to the agriculture sector.

He said interventions in the agriculture sector must continue to protect El Niño-affected workers.

“Partly affected by the prolonged dry spell and drought being experienced in some production areas, the sector recorded 877,000 net employment losses in July 2015,” said Balisacan.

“The improvement however in the wage and salary jobs and in the number of full-time workers imply that previous agriculture workers may have obtained stable full-time, and mostly wage and salary employment for the period, mostly in services,” he added.

Meanwhile, underemployment increased to 20.8 percent relative to the 18.3 percent registered in the same period in 2014.

“The rise in underemployment for the period has been driven by full-time workers who still want additional hours of work, whereas the number of underemployed part-time workers actually decreased by six percent, accounting for 263,000 people,” said Balisacan.