Employed Filipinos down in March, but unemployed and underemployed individuals improve

The number of unemployed and underemployed Filipinos improved in March while employed individuals declined during the period, data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Monday showed.

The number of employed Filipinos stood at 48.58 million, reflecting a 216,000 decline from 48.80 million the previous month, but higher than the 46.98 million in the same month last year.

The biggest drops were recorded in agriculture and forestry which fell by 607,000 to 9.92 million; financial and insurance activities down 156,000 to 588,000; manufacturing down 136,000 to 3.46 million; human health and social work activities down 130,000 to 572,000; and information and communication down 78,000 to 426,000.

Wage and salary workers accounted for 61.% or 29.91 million of the employed individuals. Private establishments provided work for 23.07 million individuals, higher than the 22.72 million February and 22.47 million in March 2022.

Government workers for the month stood at 4.45 million, lower than the 4.60 million in the past month but higher than the 4.43 million in March 2022.

According to National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa, the two subsectors that posted substantial declines were human health and social work activity, and public administration and defense.

“Even sa government sector, may mga nag-hire, may mga nawawalan ng trabaho, kadalaasan kasi kasama na dito ‘yung contractual workers,” he said in a virtual briefing.

(Even in the government sector, there were hires, and there were those who lost jobs. This often includes the contractual workers.)

While there was a drop in the magnitude, the employment rate improved to 95.3% in March from 95.2% in February, and 94.2% in the comparable period in 2022.

This comes as the Labor Force Participation Rate declined to 66.0% from 66.6% in February, but increased from 65.4% last March.

The services sector remained as the top employment sector accounting for 59.0%, followed by the agriculture sector with 23.5%, and the industry sector with 17.5%.

The biggest year-on-year increases were seen in transportation and storage up 533,000; accommodation and food service activities up 447,000; wholesale and retail trade up 407,000; construction up 384,000; and other service activities up 344,000.

There were 2.42 million unemployed Filipinos in March, translating to an unemployment rate of 4.7%. This is lower than the 2.47 million unemployed individuals in February when the unemployment rate was 4.8%, and the 2.88 million in March 2022 with the rate of 5.8%.

Underemployed Filipinos were recorded at 5.44 million, translating to an underemployment rate of 11.2%. This is lower than the 6.29 million or 12.9% in February, and the 7.42 million or 15.8% last March, and is the lowest since April 2005 or since the PSA redefined underemployment.

Underemployed individuals refer to those who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, to have an additional job, or to have a new job with long hours of work.—KG/AOL, GMA Integrated News