BSP taps online job postings, AI to track unemployment

MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is using online job postings and artificial intelligence (AI) in research aimed at estimating unemployment ahead of official data releases and detecting shifts in demand for workers across industries.

A study published in the BSP’s August Monetary Policy Report draws on JobStreet and the Department of Labor and Employment’s PhilJobNet to estimate current unemployment conditions.

The research seeks to provide earlier signals than the Philippine Statistics Authority’s Labor Force Survey, which is released about two months after the reference period.

“Timely labor market information is important to central banks, as labor market slack influences inflation, wage pressures and economic activity,” the BSP said.

The researchers trained the model on earlier observations and tested it on later periods to better approximate how it would perform when used for current economic monitoring.

Their enhanced Labor Market Intelligence System compares online vacancies with activity such as job searches to gauge the balance between employers’ demand for workers and the supply of job seekers.

A higher ratio suggests stronger demand for workers relative to available applicants, while a lower ratio points to weaker demand and more unused labor capacity.

The system also groups postings by industry and occupation, allowing researchers to identify differences that may be obscured by national employment figures.

“Some sectors may face worker shortages even when overall labor market conditions appear stable, while others may be weakening,” the study said.

To organize the postings, researchers used generative AI, which can interpret and produce text, to match job information with official Philippine industry and occupational classifications.

Machine learning, which identifies patterns in data, then helps determine which labor market indicators are most useful in estimating unemployment.

“By monitoring industries and occupations separately, policymakers can identify where labor market pressures are emerging and whether these pressures are broad-based or concentrated in specific sectors,” the researchers said.