PH employment rate rises to 95.5% in April

By Christine Fabro

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday, June 9, reported that the country’s employment rate rose to 95.5% in April from 94.3% in March this year.

This is equivalent to 48.06 million employed Filipinos in April. 

PSA noted that the latest employment rate is higher than the estimated 94.3% in April 2022 and 95.2% in January 2023.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in April dropped to 4.5% from 5.7% in the same month last year.

This indicated a decline in the number of unemployed individuals at 2.26 million in April this year from 2.76 million in April 2022.

PSA noted that the top five sub-sectors with the highest increase in the number of employed persons from January 2023 to April 2023 were the following:

1. Construction (301,000)
2. Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (183,000)
3. Human health and social work activities (125,000)
4. Other service activities (97,000)
5. Education (83,000)

The following sub-sectors also reported a quarterly decline in the number of employed persons:

1. Manufacturing (-225,000)
2. Information and communication (-66,000)
3. Transportation and storage (-18,000)
4. Electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply (-17,000)
5. Agriculture and Forestry (-10,000)
6. Real Estate Activities (-5,000)
7. Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies (-1,000)

-ag