Unemployment rate eased to 5.5 percent in April from 5.7 percent a year ago, as more people found jobs during the period, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The April figure was the lowest jobless rate for all the April rounds of the Labor Force Survey in the past decade, the PSA said. Data, however, showed the jobless rate increased from 5.3 percent in January on a quarterly basis.
The National Economic and Development Authority said the infrastructure build-up from both the public and private sectors helped boost the number of Filipinos with jobs in April.
Results of the PSA’s Labor Force Survey showed that employment rate rose to 94.5 percent”•or an equivalent of 40.9 million Filipinos”•from 94.3 percent in April 2017 (40.2 million Filipinos with jobs).
Net employment generation reached 625,000, reversing the loss recorded in April 2017.
“Employment grew partly due to increased infrastructure spending as the Department of Public Works and Highways’ road projects and rehabilitation of public school facilities are already underway nationwide,” Neda Undersecretary Jose Miguel dela Rosa said in a statement.
The industry sector recorded a strong employment growth rate of 8.1 percent or 605,000 workers, increasing its total employment share to 19.7 percent, the largest in the past decade. The construction subsector is the biggest contributor to employment, generating 468,000 jobs, among the industry subsectors during the period.
“We are now seeing the contribution of the ‘Build, Build, Build’ campaign in terms of job generation. We can expect the demand for workers in the sector to grow further as more projects break ground,” de la Rosa said.
Data showed that youth unemployment remained high despite improving to 13.8 percent, which was also the lowest in the past decade.
“We must continue to foster stronger linkages between employers, the academe, and the government to ease access to employment information and opportunities,” de la Rosa said.
Underemployment, referring to those employed but wanting more work, increased to 17 percent or 6.9 million workers in April 2018, from 16.1 percent or about 6.5 million underemployed workers in the same period last year.
This was driven by the increase of those employed full-time but wanting more work by 30.8 percent, or approximately 752,000 workers.
“In order for us to achieve our employment targets, reforms in market regulations and tackling structural barriers are important to facilitate the creation of new businesses and to boost the outputs of firms. These may translate to high-productivity jobs,” de la Rosa said.
