MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ employment rate in March stood at 94.2 percent, the highest since April 2020, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Friday.
Based on the PSA Labor Force Survey published on its website, the PSA had 1.50 million additional people employed from February to March, rising from 45.48 million to 46.98 million people employed.
The latest employment rate is lower than 94.7% in January 2020, but higher than 92.9% in March 2021.
March 2022 Labor Force Survey (LFS) results
Meanwhile, the number of unemployed in March fell to 2.87 million from 3.13 million in February.
The underemployment rate, however, fell from 14% in February to 15.8% in March. Of the total number of people employed in March, 7.42 million are underemployed.
The PSA describes underemployed people as “those who have expressed a desire to work extra hours in their current job or to have an additional job or to have a new job with longer working hours” .
The service sector is the biggest chunk of the labor market, contributing 57.4% of the 46.98 million people employed. The agricultural sector followed with 25.2% and the industrial sector with 17.4%.
Here are the top five subsectors that showed an increase in the number of people employed from February to March:
-Agriculture and forestry
– administrative and support service activities
-public administration and defence; compulsory social security
-manufacturing
– financial and insurance activities
The country’s labor force participation rate (LFPR) – or the proportion of the working-age population that is either employed or looking for work – rose further to 65.4%, the highest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PSA said the employment rate was higher among men than women at 94.7% and 93.6%, respectively.
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The youth LFPR, meanwhile, is at 36.9% in March. The youth labor force was 7.44 million out of the 20.14 million young people between the ages of 15 and 24.
On May 1, Labor Day, the government held a massive job fair with 137,287 domestic and foreign jobs awaiting applicants.
VDE
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