Jobless Pinoys rise to 2.50 million in April 2026, unemployment rate at 4.8%

The number of unemployed Filipinos increased in May 2026 as individuals seeking job opportunities during the period grew, according to the results of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) latest Labor Force Survey (LFS).

At a press briefing on Wednesday, National Statistician and PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa said there were 2.50 million persons, ages 15 and above, without jobs or livelihoods in May, up from 2.41 million jobless in April and 2.03 million in May 2025.

As a percentage of 52.13 million persons in the labor force, the number of jobless individuals translated to an unemployment rate of 4.8%, higher than the prior month’s 4.7% rate and same month last year’s 3.9%.

The 4.8% unemployment rate means 48 in 1,000 individuals have no jobs or livelihoods during the period.

Meanwhile, employed persons in May increased to 49.63 million from 48.89 million in April, but lower compared to 50.29 million in May 2025.

In terms of percentage of labor force participants, the employment rate stood at 95.2%, slightly above the 95.3% in April but lower than 96.1% in May 2025.

Top sub-sectors

In terms of month-on-month adjustments in the number of employed individuals in May, the top five sub-sectors with the highest increases were the following:

Agriculture and Forestry - 308,000

Accommodation and Food Service Activities - 266,000

Administrative and Support Service Activities - 152,000

Construction - 147,000

Human Health and Social Work Activities - 131,000

Meanwhile, the top five sub-sectors with the largest drops in the number of employed persons from month-on-month were as follows:

Public Administration and Defense; Compulsory Social Security - 175,000

Transportation and Storage - 140,000

Other Service Activities - 139,000

Financial and Insurance Activities - 127,000

Electricity, Gas, Steam and Air Conditioning Supply - 29,000

Wage and salary workers comprised the majority of the workforce during the period at 64.3%, followed by self-employed without any paid employee at 27.2%, unpaid family workers at 6.8%, and employers in their own family-operated farm or business at 1.8%.

Among wage and salary workers, those employed in private establishments continued to have the highest share of 79.4% of the total wage and salary workers or 51% of the total number of employed persons.

This was followed by those employed in government or government-controlled corporations with a share of 14.2% of the wage and salary workers or 9.1% of the total number of employed persons during the period.

Underemployed

Job quality improved as underemployment rate stood at 12.2%, down from 15.2 in April and 13.1% in May 2025.

May 2026’s underemployment means 6.04 million of the 49.63 million employed individuals were underemployed.

Underemployed persons are employed persons who express the 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.

Of the total underemployed in May, 53.7% worked less than 40 hours in a week, including those who did not work during the reference period (visibly underemployed), and 46.3% worked 40 hours or more in a week (invisibly underemployed). —VAL, GMA News