Employment numbers improved in July: NEDA

September 5, 2019

The country’s labor force continued to improve with increased employment and lower underemployment in July, the National Economic and Development Authority ( NEDA) said.

The July round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that employment increased by 5.7 percent from 1.2 percent in July 2018.

This translates to 2.3 million additional employment, almost five times the 479,000 employment generated in the same period last year.

The total number of employed Filipinos reached nearly 43.0 million in July 2019 on account of stronger employment in the services (6.1 percent from 4.7 percent in 2018) and agriculture sectors (7.6 percent from -7.4 percent in 2018).

The underemployment rate – the proportion of those already employed but still wanting more work – fell to its lowest in all July rounds of the survey at 13.9 percent, from year-ago’s 17.2 percent. This translates to a reduction of over a million underemployed workers in July.

Unemployment rate was steady at 5.4 percent, which remained to be the lowest recorded for all July rounds of the survey since 2009.

The year-to-date unemployment rate is estimated at 5.2 percent, near the upper end of the 4.3 to 5.3 percent target in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022.

The labor force participation rate expanded further to 62.1 percent as more Filipinos are encouraged to join the labor force.

In particular, youth labor force participation rate went up to 38.3 percent, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than the previous survey period. DMS