Jobless rate up slightly in Oct

THE job market lost some momentum in October as the number of unemployed slightly increased from 2016.

The unemployment rate inched up to 5 percent in October from 4.7 percent in the same month last year, the latest Labor Force Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Au- thority (PSA) showed.

This translated to 2.18 million jobless Filipinos in October 2017, compared with the 2.04 million who were out of work in the same month last year, data released by the PSA showed.

“Of the total unemployed, the age group 15 to 24 years comprised 43.9 percent, while the age group 25 to 34, 28.9 percent,” the PSA said.

By educational attainment, 20.4 percent of the unemployed were college graduates, 14.1 percent were college undergraduates, and 30.6 percent have completed junior high school.

The government did not provide an explanation on the higher unemployment rate.

Bank of the Philippine Islands vice president and lead economist Emilio Neri Jr. traced the slight uptick to bad weather. “[It] may, therefore, be temporary,” he said.

Underemployment down

Neri noted that underemployment was shrinking, and indicated that poverty rates would drop along with it.

The underemployment rate, or the proportion of the employed wanting additional work hours, was recorded at 15.9 percent in October 2017—the lowest in more than a decade.

- centage points from the 18 percent recorded in 2016.

The latest reading represented about 893,000 less underemployed workers.

“The lower underemployment rate and the higher proportion of wage and salary workers indicate improvement in the quality of employment in the country,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in a statement following the release of the data.

Fewer farm jobs

Agriculture, which accounted for 25 percent of the country’s total employment, shed about 1.4 million jobs.

Pernia emphasized the need to closely monitor the sector to ensure that those engaged in agriculture were highly productive, resilient and increasingly linked to the industry and services sectors.

Industry and services, which accounted for 75.1 percent of the total employment, saw hikes of 5.2 percent and 4 percent, respectively.