​Unemployment rate at 8.7%

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 03 Dec 2020 by Romeo Bernardo

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The statistics bureau today published the October round of its Labor Force Survey showing unemployment rate at 8.7% which compares favorably with July’s 10%. However, delving into the numbers behind the headline rate, we find: The lower unemployment rate was due more to reduced labor force participation, suggesting that some of the jobless have given up looking for work. Typically, the size of the labor force increases between July and October but this year, it fell by almost 5% equivalent to over 2.2 million workers dropping out of the labor pool. In comparison, the numerator, i.e., the number of unemployed fell by 758k. Despite a higher employment rate, close to 1.5 million jobs were destroyed between the two periods, but most of these were in unpaid family operated farms or businesses, may have been underemployed to begin with perhaps reflecting seasonal work. More worrisome perhaps, some 54k wage and salary workers in the formal sector also lost their jobs between Q3 and Q4.Comparing pre and post pandemic figures (i.e., 2019 and 2020 October surveys), the unemployment rate is up from 4.6% last year. Joblessness (unemployment + underemployment) increased from 17% last year to 23% this year. Over 2.7 million jobs have disappeared over the period with wage and salary workers lower by over 2.6 million.