MANILA, Philippines—More Filipinos were out of work in September, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Based on the latest report of PSA, unemployment rate in September rose to 8.9 percent, which translates to about 4.5 million individuals. This is higher compared to 8.1 percent or 3.88 million Filipinos recorded last August.
The labor force participation rate (LFPR) in September slightly dropped to 63.3 percent from 63.6 percent in August 2021.
“The biggest contributor to unemployment in September was the agriculture and forestry sector. That’s why the unemployment rate rose,”said national statistician Claire Dennis Mapa in an online briefing.
Mapa said bad weather and the end of the harvest season led to the unemployment rate for September.
Meanwhile, underemployed rate was estimated at 14.2 percent this September 2021 accounting for 6.18 million underemployed persons out of 43.59 million employed persons. According to the PSA, it is the second lowest reported this year following the 12.3 percent underemployment rate in May 2021. The same underemployment rate of 14.2 percent was reported in June 2021.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Chua said better labor outcomes in October can be expected when the country sees the full impact of the implementation of granular lockdowns in NCR.
“Overall, the economy has generated 1.1 million employment above the pre-pandemic level. This signals the Philippines’ continuing recovery. We look forward to the expansion of the alert level and granular lockdown system to the whole country to recover more jobs and livelihoods,” he said. AAC
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