Unemployed Filipinos down to 2.27M in July, but employed also down to 44.63M — PSA

Filipinos without jobs or livelihoods decreased in July while employed individuals also declined amid the reduction in those joining the labor force during the period, results from the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Labor Force Survey on Friday showed.

At a press conference, National Statistician and PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa reported that the number of unemployed persons, ages 15 and above, shrank to 2.27 million from 2.33 million in June, much lower than the 2.60 million jobless seen in the same month last year.

As a percentage of the total 46.90 million people in the labor force who are actively seeking work, the unemployment rate stood at 4.8%, higher than the 4.5% joblessness rate in June.

This means that 48 out of 1,000 individuals in the labor force did not have a job or business in July 2023, Mapa said.

The unemployment rate in July was also the highest in five months, or since the 4.8% rate seen in February this year.

Despite the decrease in the number of unemployed persons, employed individuals also shrank to 44.63 million in July from 48.84 million in June, translating to an employment rate of 95.2%, lower than the 95.8% in June.

Compared to June 2022, employed persons decreased by 2.76 million from 47.39 million year-on-year. 

Labor force participation declined by 3.09 million year-on-year to 46.90 million in July from 49.99 million in the same month last year, equivalent to a rate of 60.1% from 65.2% year-on-year.

In June, labor force participation stood at 51.17 million.

Mapa said about 1.99 million opted to go out of the labor force to "focus on household family duties," while 1.08 million, probably new entrants, have said that "they are too young to work."

The PSA chief added that around 365,000 individuals "felt there was no available work for them; that’s why they are outside the labor force.

Meanwhile, the number of underemployed persons—those who expressed a desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have an additional or new job with longer hours of work—increased to 7.10 million from 5.87 million in June, translating to a rate of 15.9%.

Mapa said this can be attributed to the around 1.25 million "invisible" underemployed, or those "who are already working more than 40 hours but feel they need extra hours because their income is not enough."

In a separate statement, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the government is prioritizing the creation of high-quality and high-paying jobs to address the rising issue of vulnerable employment, particularly among self-employed and unpaid family workers.

"The entire government remains committed to improving the business climate in the country to attract more investments, which will lead to the creation of high-quality and high-paying jobs," said Balisacan. 

The NEDA chief also reiterated the importance of fast-tracking the implementation of the FY 2023 budget and the government's infrastructure programs under the "Build-Better-More" initiative, which aims to strengthen the country's competitiveness and create more job opportunities for workers. 

"We will focus on expanding upskilling and retooling programs to improve the country's labor market performance. These are critical to assisting members of the workforce, particularly those in vulnerable employment, to improve their employability and allowing them to move across industries and occupations," said Balisacan.

Sectors

The services sector remained as the dominant labor sector, accounting for 59.4% of the total employed persons in July. The agriculture and the industry sectors, meanwhile, accounted for 21.5% and 19.0%, respectively.

The following are the top five sub-sectors with the highest number of annual increments in employed persons:

• Transportation and storage (337,000)
• Administrative and support service activities (243,000)
• Professional, scientific and technical activities (162,000)
• Information and communication (117,000)
• Manufacturing (75,000)

On the other hand, the top five sub-sectors with the highest decline in employed individuals are the following:

• Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (1.97 million)
• Agriculture and Forestry (1.58 million)
• Public administration and defense; compulsory social security (271,000)
• Arts, entertainment and recreation (-44,000)
• Real estate activities (-32,000)

In terms of class of workers, Mapa said wage and salary workers account for the largest share of employed individuals in July at 67.2%, followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee at 25.2% and unpaid family workers at 4.5%.

Employees of their own family-operated farm or business had the lowest share at 3.1%.

Among wage and salary workers, employed persons in private establishments made up 53.4% of the total employed persons, followed by those employed in government or government-controlled corporations with a share of 9.1%.

Moreover, across all regions in the country, Region II or Cagayan Valley posted the highest employment rate of 96.7% in July.

It was followed by Region XI or Davao Region with an employment rate of 96.5% and Region XII or SOCCSKSARGEN with 96.4%.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate at the regional level showed that seven of the 17 regions posted an unemployment rate higher than the national rate of 4.8% in July.

These were Region V or Bicol Region (6.2%), Region IV-A or CALABARZON (5.9%), Region VII or Central Visayas (5.5%), Region X or Northern Mindanao (5.4%), Region VIII or Eastern Visayas (5.1%), Region XIII or Caraga (5.1%) and National Capital Region (4.9%). — RSJ/KBK/VBL, GMA Integrated News