Jobless rate steadies at 5.3% in January

MANILA, Philippines — Employment and unemployment growth were unchanged year-on-year in January despite the increase in the work-ready population, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said yesterday.

As of January 2020, the country has 73 million Filipinos aged 15 and above available for work, more than 71.89 million higher than the same month last year. Out of this number, 61.7 percent or 45.04 million are in the labor force, from more than 43.31 million previously.

Within the labor force, 94.7 percent are employed as seen in the employment rate for January, translating to 42.65 million Filipinos with jobs, up from 41.03 million in 2019.

Unemployment, meanwhile, held steady at 5.3 percent in January, equivalent to 2.39 million Filipinos looking for work compared with 2.28 million in the same month in 2019.

The rate of underemployment, meanwhile, eased to 14.8 percent in January 2020 from 15.4 percent in January 2019. This is equivalent to 6.32 million Filipinos who are employed but looking for more work in January from 6.33 million last year.

Changes in employment trends are used by industries as a guide to determining consumption trends.

Most of the employed in the country were wage and salary workers making up 65.2 percent of the total employed. This was followed by self-employed without any paid employee, unpaid family workers and employers in family-operated businesses.

The services sector employed the most workers, absorbing 58.6 percent of those employed. This was followed by industry, 18.8 percent and agriculture, 22.7 percent.