By Brian Jules Campued
The unemployment rate in the Philippines significantly fell to 3.1% in December 2023 from the 3.6% in November and the 4.3% registered in December 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) announced Wednesday.
This corresponded to about 1.6 million jobless individuals in December 2023, lower than the reported number of unemployed persons in November of 1.83 million and in December 2022 of 2.22 million.
Preliminary results from the December 2023 Labor Force Survey showed continuous decline in the number of unemployed Filipinos aged 15 and above since September of last year when it logged a 4.5% jobless rate.
Among the surveyed unemployed adults, Mapa revealed that 162,000 said they were waiting for results in their job applications–a modest rise from 69,000 persons in December 2022.
The number of jobless individuals who believe that no work is available also dipped to 93,000 in December 2023 from 116,000 in December 2022.
Meanwhile, the employment rate increased to 96.9% in December, up by 0.5 points from the 96.4% in November 2023 and 95.7% recorded in December 2022.
This is equivalent to about 50.52 million employed workers in December, higher than the number of employed persons in November at 49.64 million and in December 2022 of 49 million, according to PSA data.
“This is the highest (employment rate) since 2005, same with the unemployment rate na 3.1%, this is also the lowest since 2005,” National Statistician and PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa said in a press briefing.
On the other hand, there were 6.01 million underemployed individuals or those who expressed a desire to have an additional job or hours of work in December 2023, higher than 5.79 million persons in the preceding month but still lower than the 6.20 million in December 2022.
“Services sector continued to dominate the labor market in December 2023 in terms of number of employed persons, with a share of 57.3% of the 50.52 million employed persons,” PSA data stated.
Mapa noted increases in construction jobs of both residential and non-residential buildings which generated an additional 777,000 employed individuals followed by other sub-sectors such as agriculture and forestry (715,000) and accommodation and food services (498,000).
“Year-on-year, nag-increase tayo ng employed ng mga 1.52 million from December 2022 to December 2023,” he added.
Due to the demand in furnishings and fixtures during the holidays, craft and related trade workers contributed about 646,000 occupations including over 300,000 carpenters and stone masons.
When asked if the latest data on the labor force participation are only attributed to the holidays and therefore will change again in the following months, Mapa agreed that their records show the employment rate usually increases during the fourth quarter.
“So yes there is really a seasonality and this is because during the holidays, consumption is higher, thus, nagcre-create tayo ng additional jobs,” he continued.
He, however, stressed that this is just a preliminary report for 2023 and data may also change in January when results in their latest survey is revealed.
“Based on historical data, ang iba dito na employed ng fourth quarter, name-maintain naman sila during January or the first quarter but we will wait for the result of the January Labor Force Survey to really see the picture.” – avds