The National Economic and Development Authority said that the Philippine labor market continues to sustain its recovery as employment rate is at its highest since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
With the resumption of face-to-face work and school and the easing of restrictions, the country's jobs market continues to improve, leading to a strong economic recovery from the pandemic.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent in October 2022, from the 7.4 percent October 2021, the lowest unemployment rate recorded since 2019.
Employment rate soared to 95.5 percent, the highest records since the start of the pandemic. This translated to an employment level of 47.1 million in October 2022 which is 3.3 million higher than in the same period last year.
A further two million people entered the labor force as the labor force participation rate increased to 64.2 percent in October 2022 from 62.6 percent in October 2021.
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Arsenio Balisacan said that the sustained recovery backed the agency’s confidence on their policies and interventions to reviving the economy is working.
The return of the “normalcy” in the country showed how Filipinos continuously demonstrate competence and high productivity, with some pursuing more income opportunities.
The current Christmas season and the impending inflation that puts the prices of essential commodities so high can both contribute to the substantial increase in work participation. Working also became a necessity to ensure that they can move on from this.
Majority of the increase in employment came from the services and industry sectors. However, the agriculture sector showed employment loss with the tropical cyclones last October 2022.
Meanwhile, the fishing and aquaculture sector record 34,000 additional employment during that particular period.
Underemployment
Underemployment rate fell to 14.2 percent from 16.1 percent in October 2021 which is 371,000 fewer underemployed persons. However, as more people look for ways to supplement their income because of uncontrollable price increases of commodities, the number of those underemployed continues to rise.
NEDA recognized the need to put in more effort in creating more and high quality jobs by improving workforce employability, especially if we wanted to purse economic transformation.
With La Nina predicted to last until March 2023, Balisacan reaffirmed the government's dedication to strengthening the nation's catastrophe resilience. These include building preventive and quick-response measures for disaster risk reduction and management across the nation, utilizing technology to increase knowledge-sharing, and effectively implementing emergency employment programs to reduce job losses.
The private sector could be the engine for growth as Balisacan urged for more public-private partnerships (PPP) to expand skills development and opportunities in the country.
The government will be needed to address these issues so that the country could bounce back from the pandemic. It could help by easing business transactions and service delivery which would be easier for the private sector to participate in the partnership.
Filipino citizens should also be more competitive in improving their skillset and maintaining good health so that there won’t be any more chances that quarantine would make a comeback.
“More than reducing the total unemployment, our goal is to ensure that the strategies of the Philippine Development Plan for 2023-2028 will be fully implemented to generate more jobs, green jobs, and high quality jobs."
Tags: #NEDA, #Employment, #Inflation, #Underemployment, #Unemployment