Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez said the latest jobs report by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) indicates that the country is on the right track towards recovery.
Lopez noted that PSA’s Labor Force Survey (LFS) recorded an employment rate in October at 91.3 percent, the highest rate since April 2020. This translates to about 39.8M employed Filipinos out of the 43.6 million who were part of the country’s labor force for that month.
As a result, unemployment rate in October also eased up to 8.7 percent coming from 10 percent in July and the all-time high of 17.6 percent last April. The October unemployment rate means there were around 3.8 million jobless Filipinos for that month amid the coronavirus crisis.
Additionally, the underemployment rate in October 2020 declined to 14.4% as compared to the rate in April of 18.9%.
“Despite the setbacks we encountered during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we are glad to see an increase in our country’s employment rate. This is a result of our efforts to gradually reopen the economy and further ease the community quarantine restrictions,” said Lopez.
“Considering that we were also hit hard by a succession of typhoons recently, we were still able to attain the highest employment rate since April of this year.”
Although the improving employment scene in the country is a good sign of recovery, Lopez said the country has not yet achieved its pre-COVID unemployment rate of 5 percent because of the calamities and quarantine restrictions.
"We were expecting the unemployment rate to be back at a single-digit level. And it would have been better of course if there were lesser restrictions and calamities that hit the country," he said.
Moreover, Lopez attributed the liquid financial market as a possible factor that could further improve the country's employment rate. He explained that the country's financial market could finance more investments or working capital and urged more commercial banks to accelerate their lending.
Meanwhile, the country’s labor force participation rate (LFPR) was recorded lower at 58.7 percent in October 2020, from 61.9 percent in July 2020. This is considered to be the second lowest LFPR in the history of the Philippine labor market, following 55.7 percent in April 2020.
"To support our economy, we encourage our fellow Filipinos to prioritize buying locally made products in support of our local businesses, especially our micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This would help to save jobs, which would keep our people employed," said the trade chief.
He added, “DTI remains committed in improving our labor market, which would boost economic activities for the rest of 2020 and the years to come. However, we still need to keep and observe minimum health protocols as we manage the virus."