Taking off from the improved labor market landscape in January 2021, the latest result of the February 2021 Labor Force Survey (LFS) is encouraging with an increase of 2.140 million in the country’s labor force and 1.905 million workers who had regained employment from the gradual and safe reopening of the economy. Majority of the sectors have shown significant improvement in terms of employment generation. The services sector reported the highest increase at 1.6 million followed by agriculture (+259,000) sector and industry (+46,000).
However, the quality of jobs remains to be a challenge as the underemployment rate slightly increased to 18.2 percent from 16 percent in January 2021. This also indicates that income is limited due to quarantine restrictions.
Despite the imposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila and adjacent provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal from March 24 to April 4 to slow down the spread of the virus and recalibrate our COVID-19 response strategies, we still expect a better and more improved employment performance in the coming months with the rollout of the vaccination program.
We call upon all workers and businesses to continue the strict implementation of the minimum public health standards (MPHS), and occupational safety and health policies.
We need to instill the discipline in adhering to basic MPHS – proper wearing of face mask and face shield, washing of hands, and social distancing.
The Department of Labor and Employment continues to work with various government agencies and support initiatives such as the Task Group on Economic Recovery (TGER) and the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) Task Force for the economy’s safe re-opening and sustained labor market improvement in the new normal.
