Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed on Wednesday (September 9) that the country’s unemployment rate slightly dipped in July to 6.5 percent, equivalent to an annualized 0.2 percent ease from the same month last year.
Underemployment, however, rose to 20.8 percent from July 2014’s 18.3 percent. The term refers to a situation where employees are either overqualified for their current jobs, or are currently in part-time jobs but are looking full-time work.
According to National Economic Development Administration chief Arsenio Balisacan, the country is at par for the rest of the year in achieving the Philippine Development Plan target of 6.6 to 6.8 percent for unemployment.
In four regions, the PSA logged unemployment rates that were higher than the national average:
Central Luzon: 8.8 percent
Metro Manila: 8.2 percent
Ilocos Region: 8.2 percent
Calabarzon: 8.0 percent
A majority (55.5 percent) of the employed came from the services sector. Those engaged in wholesale and retail trade or in the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles formed the largest share (33 percent) of workers in the services sector.
Employees who worked in agriculture comprised the second largest group (28.0 percent) of the total employed, followed by those in the industry sector (16.5 percent).
Balisacan mentioned that the El Niño weather phenomena has caused job losses in agriculture: “Partly affected by the prolonged dry spell and drought being experienced in some production areas, the sector recorded 877,000 net employment losses in July 2015.”
“The improvement however in the wage and salary jobs and in the number of full-time workers imply that previous agriculture workers may have obtained stable full-time, and mostly wage and salary employment for the period, mostly in services,” he added.
When grouped according to occupation, laborers and unskilled workers took the largest share (32.3 percent) of total employment. At second (16.5 percent) were officials of the Government and special interest organizations, corporate executives, managers, and managing proprietors. The group was followed by service workers and shop/market sales workers (12.5 percent), and farmers, forestry workers and fishermen (11.8 percent).
“Over the medium term, government efforts should help lift the constraints to sustained, decent and quality job-generating growth by increasing competition and reducing the cost of doing business,” Baliscan added.
