The unemployment rate went up by a significant margin from March to April, but the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said this was expected due to recent circumstances connected to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
"The labor department had anticipated that the improvement in employment reported in March 2021 will not be sustained due to the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) within the NCR (National Capital Region)-plus bubble in March to April, and modified enhance community quarantine (MECQ) from 1 to 15 May," DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a statement Tuesday, June 8.
"This had significantly affected the April 2021 LFS (Labor Force Survey) result as businesses and mobility of workers were again restricted to contain the spread of the virus," Bello noted.
The latest LFS results showed that the unemployment rate in the country jumped to 8.7 percent (representing 4.138 million unemployed Filipinos) this April from 7.1 percent (3.441 million) in March.
This means that nearly 700,000 Filipinos lost their jobs during the month-long period. The NCR-plus refers to Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal.
"Similarly, the number of underemployed persons have slightly increased by 118,000 at 7.453 million (17.2 percent) from the 7.335 million (16.2 percent) in March 2021," DOLE acknowledged.
DOLE reiterated that it is one with the country's economic managers in safely reopening businesses so that mobility of workers is also facilitated in a less restrictive community quarantine levels. "This is the only way to sustain our employment recovery and economic recovery efforts," Bello said.
"The current labor market condition may be improved by the timely rollout of vaccines for A4 categories of priority groups - the workers. We call upon all Filipino workers to get themselves inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines," added Bello.
The immunization of individuals under the A4 grouping officially began on Monday, June 7, although a "symbolic" rollout of vaccines for the workers was carried out on Labor Day, May 1.
The unemployment rates in January 2021 and February 2021 were 8.7 percent (4 million) and 8.8 percent (4.2 million), respectively.