Unemployed Filipinos down to 2.03M in May 2025 —PSA

The number of unemployed Filipinos went down to 2.03 million in May from 2.06 million in April this year, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Tuesday.

Based on the latest Labor Force Survey, PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa said the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9% in May 2025 from the 4.1%  recorded in both April 2025 and May 2024.

“Ang unemployment rate ay naitala sa 3.9% or 39 sa kada 1,000 na individual na nasa labor force ang walang trabaho o negosyo nitong Mayo 2025,” Mapa said in a briefing.

(The unemployment rate was recorded at 3.9% or 39 out of every 1,000 individuals in the labor force were without a job or business in May 2025.)

This brought the country’s unemployment rate to 96.1%, up from 95.9% in both April 2025 and May 2024, and equivalent to 50.29 million employed individuals.

The highest share was recorded in the services sector which accounted for 61.8%, followed by agriculture with 21.1%, and industry at 17.1%.

In terms of subsectors, wholesale and retail trade and the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles posted the biggest increase with 489,000. Agriculture and forestry came in next with 469,000; administrative and support service activities with 371,000; accommodation and food service activities with 365,000; and other service activities with 175,000.

Wage and salary workers accounted for 62.8%, while those self-employed without any paid employee made up 27.9%, and employers in their own family-operated farm or business with 1.8%.

Of the 31.6 million wage and salary workers, those in private establishments were at 77.1%, government workers at 15%, and private household workers at 7.5%. 

Employed Filipinos worked an average of 39.8 hours in May, down from the 39.9 hours in the previous month, and 40.6 hours in the same month last year.

There were about 91,000 Filipinos or 0.18% of the total employed persons who worked for exactly one hour during the month.

Meanwhile, the number of underemployed Filipinos — those who express the desire to have additional hours of work, or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with longer hours of work — also decreased to 6.60 million or 13.1% in May from the 7.09 million or 14.6% recorded in April.

The youth underemployment rate was recorded at 11.5%, reflecting an improvement from the 13.4% in April, but was still higher than the 10.2% in May 2024.

According to the PSA, 52.32 million individuals aged 15 years old and above were employed in May 2025. This is higher than the 50.74 million recorded in April 2025 and the 50.97 million recorded in May 2024.

The survey was conducted from May 8 to May 28 with a total of 11,083 households sampled. Results showed that persons aged 15 years and above in the labor force now comprise 65.8% of the population, indicating that 1.4 million Filipinos have joined the labor force to bring the total to 52.32 million Filipinos.

Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. welcomed the latest job numbers, adding the government would intensify its efforts.

“[H]indi ito natatapos dito kumbaga eh hindi ito para magpunyagi, kailangan mas maganda pa ang ipakita ng administrasyon para makapagbigay pa ng mas maraming trabaho sa ating mga kababayan,” she said in a briefing.

(This does not end here, in other words, this is not a reason to boast. The administration must do even better to provide more jobs for our fellow citizens.)

“We welcome this development in labor force participation because it indicates a healthy and competitive Philippine labor market,” Economy, Planning, and Development Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in a separate statement.

“Generally, a larger workforce can lead to increased economic output and potentially higher GDP growth, as more people contribute to the economy,” he added.

He said the government must enhance the efficiency of public spending and allocate limited resources to quality education, healthcare, food security, and connectivity infrastructure.

According to Balisacan, the government will leverage recently enacted policy reforms to improve upskilling and reskilling initiatives, saying that equipping Filipinos with in-demand skills and competencies will ensure that the workforce remains agile.

Further, he said that the government is seeking to create an enabling environment that will attract Global Capability Centers to the country.

“To support this, efforts will focus on strengthening workforce competencies in digitalization and generative AI,” the department said.

Meanwhile, the DEPDev said the government will also release guidelines seeking to help the workforce in integrating AI into their operations while safeguarding jobs.

DEPDev said the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 midterm update is expected to be released this month. —AOL/KG/VBL, GMA Integrated News