By Christine Fabro
The unemployment rate further dropped to 4.7% in March 2023, from 5.8% in March 2022 and 4.8% in February 2023, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Monday, May 8.
“This translates to 2.42 million unemployed Filipinos out of 51 million individuals who were in the labor force in March 2023,” the release read.
PSA also logged a 95.3% employment rate in the country in March 2023, higher than the reported employment rate in March 2022 at 94.2% and in February 2023 at 95.2%.
Meanwhile, the underemployment rate plummeted to 11.2% in March 2023 from 15.8% in the same month last year and 12.9% in February this year.
According to PSA, this was the lowest unemployment rate reported since April 2005.
“The reported underemployment rate was equivalent to 5.44 million persons who expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have additional job, or to have a new job with long hours of work,” PSA noted.
Services sector remain as ‘top employment hub’
The services sector shared 59% of the total employed population in March 2023.
This was followed by the agriculture and industry sectors, which accounted for 23.5% and 17.5% of the total employed persons, respectively.
Data showed that the top five sub-sectors with the highest year-on-year increase in the number of employed in March 2023 are as follows:
- Transportation and storage: 533,000
- Accommodation and food service activities: 447,000
- Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles: 407,000
- Construction: 384,000
- Other service activities: 344,000
On the other hand, the following are the top five sub-sectors with the largest year-on-year drop in the number of employed individuals:
- Agriculture and forestry: -607,000
- Financial and insurance activities: -156,000
- Manufacturing: -136,000
- Human health and social work activities: -130,000
- Information and communication: -78,000
-ag
