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Philippine Jobless Rate Rises to 6.6%

Philippine Jobless Rate Rises to 6.6%
Philippine Jobless Rate Rises to 6.6%

The Philippine unemployment rate rose to 6.6% in January from 5.7% of the same period last year, the Philippine Statistics Authority said in its quarterly labor force survey released Tuesday. The latest unemployment rate is equivalent to 2.761 million Filipinos who were jobless during the period.

“We mainly observe the employment losses in the agriculture sector, which has been greatly affected by typhoons Nina and Auring that hit our country last December and January,” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority Director General Ernesto M. Pernia, Xinhua reported.

The increase in unemployment rate is also partly due to the temporary election-related jobs, he said. This was also observed in January 2011, a year following the 2010 elections.

Unemployment rates were highest in Ilocos Region (8.7%), National Capital Region (8.5%), Caraga (8.5%) and Calabarzon (8.2%), said PSA, an attached agency of NEDA.

Among the unemployed persons in January, 69.6% were males. Of the total unemployed, the age group 15 to 24 years comprised 44.1%, while the age group 25 to 34, 29.6%. By educational attainment, 16.5% of the unemployed were college graduates, 14.6% were college undergraduates, and 31.1% were high school graduates.

With the increase in unemployment rate, employment rate declined to 93.4% from 94.3% a year ago. This translates to 39.3 million employed Filipinos, which is 1.34 million or 3.3% lower than in January 2016.

Meanwhile, underemployment, which refers to those who are working but want more work, improved to 16.3% or 1.6 million workers, lower from last year’s 19.7%. This is the lowest rate recorded for all labor force survey January rounds since 2006.

 

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