Manila, Philippines – The Philippine labor market capped 2025 with just 172,000 new jobs – on a net basis – created, the most modest gain in post-COVID years, according to data the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released on Friday, Feb. 6.
The full-year unemployment rate worsened to an annual 4.2 percent in 2025, from 3.8 percent in 2024, with job cuts most pronounced in the final quarter as builders trimmed headcount as the government tightened the purse strings on public works in wake of the flood control scandal.
In December alone, joblessness – or the ratio of those without jobs to the labor force aged 15 and up – was 4.4 percent from 3.1 percent during the same month in 2024.
The latest 4.4 percent joblessness print translates to 2.26 million Filipinos out of work at end-December, or an additional 631,000 jobless year-on-year.
The construction sector alone cut 550,000 jobs that month, the PSA data showed.
Builders and public works contractors have been under tighter scrutiny since September last year after a congressional-led probe unearthed a wide-scale corruption scheme behind the budget allocation for and awarding of flood control contracts.
The 550,000 job losses in December covered a wide spectrum of public works – from construction of buildings to civil engineering projects and even the last mile building completion and finishing works, the PSA said.
“Nakita naman natin na bumaba ang public construction expenditure sa fourth quarter. Dito nag-rereflect dahil bumaba ang disbursement sa public construction, konti na lang ang na-hire kaya nagbawas yung ating employed sa construction sector,” National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa told a press briefing on Friday.
[TRANSLATION: We’ve seen a decline in public construction expenditure in the fourth quarter. That reflected a drop in disbursement for public construction – hirings were fewer so the construction sector cut headcount.]
The Marcos administration has been aiming to contain the jobless rate at the low single digits, and the forces that shaped last year’s labor market were historically the same – farming and fisheries remaining vulnerable to an average 20 typhoons a year, coupled with cautious business sentiment amid lingering global uncertainties – except for the corruption scandal that became the new variable that upset the 2025 outcome.
In 2023, as more sectors reopened after the pandemic, the Philippines added 1.29 million fresh jobs, Mapa said.
By 2024, the statistics were halved to 664,000 on a net basis.
Last year, the new jobs created were a mere fraction of a million: 172,000.
“Admittedly sa datos namin in the last three years, ito na ang pinakamababa na additional employed persons year on year,” Mapa said.
[TRANSLATION: Admittedly from our data in the last three years, this is the lowest turnout of additional employed persons year on year.]
“If you ask me the major contributor would be the reduction in employment in construction,” the national statistician said.
