MANILA — The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is hoping that the increase in employment in the country, based on the results of the latest Labor Force Survey (LFS) released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), will continue this year and beyond as more infrastructure projects are set to begin soon.
“We hope that this trend continues in the remaining months of the year onwards as more projects in the Build, Build, Build Program are about to start,” said Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique Tutay in a statement Thursday.
Tutay also welcomed the results of the said survey.
“We welcome the vibrant employment results of the Labor Force Survey in January 2018 as employment increased in all major sector, highest of which is in the industry sector at 10.5 percent (719,000 jobs),” she said.
“Net employment in industry sector is mainly driven by net employment increments in construction (434,000),” Tutay added.
Likewise, the PSA data showed that the total employment in agriculture was up to 26 percent in January 2018, from 25.5 percent in January 2017, while the industry sector increased to 18.1 percent, from last year’s 17.4 percent.
The DOLE-BLE official noted that they have to work on building more skills and also for returning (skilled) overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to be employed in the country.
“The challenge is for us to build more skills to be absorbed by the construction sub-sector and for skilled returning OFWs to take on and fill-in the tens of thousands job vacancies in the country,” she said.
On the other hand, the PSA reported that the country’s jobless rate was at 5.3 percent, from 6.6 percent in 2017. It also indicated that 41.8 million Filipinos are employed.
The data also revealed that the underemployment rate went up to 18 percent in January from 16.3 percent in the same period last year.
The Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” program is aimed at modernizing the country’s infrastructure foundation by introducing flagship projects worth billions of dollars in investments. (Ferdinand Patinio/PNA)
