Unemployed Filipinos decline to 3.16M in November — PSA

The number of jobless Filipinos declined in November 2021 amid less stringent quarantine restrictions during the period which allowed more businesses to operate, a report by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed on Friday.

The number of unemployed adults - ages 15 and above - stood at 3.16 million reflecting an unemployment rate of 6.5% in November last year.

This is lower than the 3.5 million unemployed individuals or an unemployment rate of 7.4% recorded in October 2021.

The November unemployment rate was the lowest since the beginning of 2021, followed by July 2021’s 6.9% rate and March 2021’s 7.1%.

PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa also noted that the November unemployment rate is “the lowest since the pandemic.”

The National Capital Region, the country’s economic center, was under Alert Level 2 from November 5 until it was upgraded to Alert Level 3 on January 3 due to spike in new COVID-19 cases.

Under Alert Level 2, establishments are allowed to operate indoors at 50% capacity with additional 10% capacity if they have a safety seal. For outdoors, they will be allowed at 70%. 

Under Alert Level 3, several establishments will be allowed to operate at 30% indoor venue capacity only for fully vaccinated individuals and 50% outdoor venue capacity, provided that all employees are fully vaccinated.

Face-to-face classes, contact sports, funfairs/perya, and casinos are among the activities and establishments that are prohibited under Alert Level 3. 

Employed

At a virtual press briefing, Mapa also reported that the country’s employment rate increased to 93.5% —the highest since the start of 2021.

The employment rate is equivalent to 45.48 million employed individuals in November 2021 , higher than 43.83 million recorded in October 2021.

Mapa explained that due to the holiday season, many companies, especially in retail trade, opened employment opportunities to cope with the increased consumer demand.

By broad industry group, the services sector dominated all sectors having the largest share of employed persons with 58.1%, according to the PSA.

The agriculture and the industry sectors contributed 24.5% and 17.4% of the employed persons, respectively.

Month-on-month changes from October 2021 to November 2021 showed the top five sub-sectors with increased number of employed persons:

• Fishing and aquaculture (355,000)
• Other service activities (323,000)
• Public administration and defense, compulsory social security (292,000)
• Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (282,000)
• Education (145,000)

On the other hand, month-on-month changes from October 2021 to November 2021 also showed the top five sub-sectors with drop in employment:

• Human health and social work activities (-98,000)
• Mining and quarrying (-35,000)
• Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (-31,000)
• Financial and insurance activities (-28,000)
• Administrative and support service activities (-16,000)

Underemployed

Despite the lower unemployment and higher employment figures, the underemployment rate — the proportion of employed persons wanting additional work — rose to 16.7% from 16.1% in October 2021.

Underemployed persons are 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.

The PSA chief explained that the underemployment rate was higher since most companies are not yet stable after being allowed to reopen following months of strict lockdowns.

Nonetheless, Mapa said the underemployment rate is not “so significant” since it involves only the number of working hours not the quality of jobs.

In particular, “visible underemployment” rate — the proportion of those persons working less than 40 hours in a week and expressing the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job —was estimated at 11.5%, higher than the 10.7% in October 2021.

“Invisibly underemployed rate” — or the proportion of those persons working at least 40 hours in a week but still expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job — was estimated at 5.2%.

Labor force participation rate in November 2021 — the number of adults who are actively looking for work — was estimated at 64.2% or 48.64 million individuals.

This was higher than the labor force participation rate of 62.6% reported in October 2021.

Youth employment

Youth labor force participation rate in November 2021, meanwhile, was registered at 37.5%, higher than the youth labor force participation reported in October 2021 at 35.7%.

Youth employment rate in November 2021 was estimated at 86.6%, the highest to be reported in 2021.

Underemployment rate among youth was placed at 16.6% or 1.09 million of the 6.52 million employed youth.

For the month of November 2021, employed youth worked on an average of 36.1 hours per week.

Youth unemployment rate in November 2021 was the lowest reported during the year at 13.4%. — RSJ, GMA News