The number of unemployed Filipinos increased, causing a slump in the labor market, according to data released on Wednesday by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The country’s jobless rate increased to 3.9 percent in March from 3.5 percent in February, but it was still lower than the 4.7 percent that was seen at the same time last year.
This increase amounts to 2 million unemployed Filipinos, which is 200,000 more than the 1.80 million statistic from February. But compared to March of last year, when there were 2.42 million unemployed people, it is a fall of 420,000 in terms of year-over-year comparison.
Underemployment, which includes people looking for part-time or additional work, also decreased at the same time, from 12.4 percent in February 2023 to 11.0 percent in March 2023.
There were 5.39 million underemployed people, which included people looking for new roles with longer work hours or people looking for extra hours in their existing jobs.
Although it was higher than March 2023’s 95.3 percent, the PSA saw a modest decline in the employment rate, down to 96.1 percent from 96.5 percent in February.
However, the number of people in employment in March was 49.15 million, higher than the numbers from February 2024 (48.95 million) and March 2023 (48.58 million).
With 61.4 percent of the working population, the services sector dominated the labor market in March.
March’s Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) was 65.3%, down from the previous year’s rate of 65.0% in February but up from 64.8 percent in March of this year.
