Employment rate falls to 93.4%, unemployment up at 6.6% – PSA

The employment rate slipped by 0.9 percentage point to 93.4 percent in January 2017, from 94.3 percent a year earlier, data from the latest Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority's (PSA) showed on Tuesday.

The employment rate is equivalent to 39.3 million employed Filipinos, down by 1.34 million, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) noted in a separate statement.

In conjunction, the unemployment rate increased by 0.9 percentage point to 6.6 percent from 5.7 percent in the same comparable period.

"Business people are in wait-and-see attitude sa investment climate sa Philippines in relation to uncertainties sa policy ng Duterte administration, issues in the US such as the stance of President Donald Trump against outsourcing of jobs, and the slowing down of OFW deployment because of Middle East crisis," Rene Ofreneo, director of the Center for Labor Justice-UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations, told GMA News Online.

"May softening after ng election, kasi usually every election marami ang may trabaho, but point-something lang naman ang difference," Ofreneo noted.

The NEDA confirmed in its statement that increase in unemployment rate was partly due to the temporary nature of election-related jobs.

"This was also observed in January 2011, a year that followed the 2010 elections," it said.

The PSA took note that the total labor force – 15 years old and above – has reached 69.414 million from 67.889 million.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia noted the decline in the number of employed Filipinos was due to job losses in the agriculture sector.

“We mainly observe the employment losses in the agriculture sector, which has been greatly affected by typhoons 'Nina' and 'Auring' that hit our country last December and January,” Pernia said.

The Cabinet official further noted that the agriculture sector accounts for the second largest share of the total employment rate at 25.5 percent, which has shed an estimated 882,000 workers or two-thirds of the employment losses.

The underemployment rate rose to 16.3 percent or 1.6 million workers lower from last year’s 19.7 percent.

"This is lowest rate recorded for all LFS (Labor Force Survey) January rounds since 2006," the NEDA said.

The PSA defines the underemployed as "... persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours." The underemployment rate is the percentage of the underemployed to the total employed. — VDS, GMA News