Manila, Philippines – Joblessness worsened in July, the worst in nearly three years, according to the latest government data that showed over-a-million farm job cuts, longer work hours and more young people without work.
The July round of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Labor Force Survey showed the unemployment rate returning to mid-pandemic levels at 5.3 percent, failing to sustain a below 5-percent streak that the government aimed for.
The July jobless rate – not a pace, but rather measured as a ratio of those without work in relation to the total labor force aged 15 and up – meant 2.59 million Filipinos were unemployed out of the 48.64-million strong workforce.
During the same month last year, the jobless rate was 4.7 percent equivalent to 2.38 million jobless.
The economy logged 1.38 million job losses in the agriculture and forestry sectors; 897,000 in stores; 173,000 in fishing and aquaculture; and 147,000 in construction.
Unfavorable weather conditions, with four typhoons in July, took a toll on the labor market, the statistics agency said.
“Yung agriculture medyo sensitive sa weather plus sabi ko nga kanina ang nakikita namin sa field visits, yung paddy rice bumaba na ‘yun di lang ngayong July but in previous months pa,” National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Claire Dennis Mapa told a press briefing.
[TRANSLATION: The agriculture sector is sensitive to weather, and our field visits revealed the population of workers in paddy fields shrank not only in July but also in previous months.]
“Normally ang sagot kasi sa amin, nagmo-move sila sa construction yung mga workers but again because of the weather bumaba yung construction,” he added.
[TRANSLATION: The workers said they normally move to construction but again because of the weather, even construction cut jobs.]
About a fifth of the jobless population are young, or those aged 15 to 24 based on PSA metrics, expanding to 1.08 million in July from 1.02 million a year ago.
Those with work labored for 42 hours (mean) in a week, longer than 41.1 hours during the same month a year ago.
The weakness in the labor market could be short-lived, Mapa said.
“We look at it as temporary… Pag tiningnan natin yung class of workers, makikita nyo tumaas ang employment sa wage and salary,” he said.
[TRANSLATION: We look at it as temporary… When we look at data on the class of workers, there was an increase in wage and salary workers.]
