Malacañang said that the Marcos administration's efforts to provide more jobs to Filipinos have begun bearing fruit following the reported drop in the country's unemployment rate. *(Jansen Romero/File photo)*

Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said this after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported in its April 2023 Labor Force Survey that in terms of level, the number of unemployed Filipinos in April 2023 was estimated at 2.26 million, indicating a decline of at least 500,000 from the 2.76 million unemployed persons in April last year. In a statement, Garafil welcomed the development, saying the administration's job-generation programs have been effective. "The efforts by the Marcos administration to create more jobs for Filipinos started to pay off after the country recorded a drop in unemployment rate to 4.5 percent in April 2023, from 5.7 percent in the same month last year," she said. She likewise welcomed the country's April 2023 employment rate, which was posted at 95.5 percent. This is higher than the estimates in April 2022 (94.3 percent) and January 2023 (95.2 percent). In terms of magnitude, the number of employed persons rose to 48.06 million in April 2023 from 45.63 million in the same period of 2022. According to the PSA, the number of employed persons in April 2023 was also higher than the reported 47.35 million employed persons in January 2023. PSA data further showed the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) increased to 65.1 percent in April 2023, or about 50.31 million Filipinos aged 15 years old and over who were either employed or unemployed. The reported LFPR in April 2023 was also higher than the reported rate of 63.4 percent in April 2022 and 64.5 percent in January 2023. LFPR among males (75.4 percent) was higher than females (54.7 percent), although the employment rate was higher among females at 96.0 percent than their male counterparts at 95.2 percent. The PSA also reported that the underemployment rate among males was higher (14.6 percent) than for females (10.6 percent). The unemployment rate for males was 4.8 percent of the 29.27 million males in the labor force, while 4.0 percent of the 21.04 million females in the labor force were unemployed in April 2023. Meanwhile, the services sector continued to dominate the labor market, having the largest share of employed persons at about 61.1 percent in April 2023. The PSA added also reported that the year-on-year gain in employment was driven by the services sector. The agriculture and industry sectors accounted for 21.9 percent and 17.0 percent, respectively. The top five sub-sectors with the highest increase in the number of employed persons from April 2022 to April 2023 include: * Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (914,000) * Accommodation and food service activities (379,000) * Administrative and support service activities (345,000) * Transportation and storage (321,000) * Other service activities (242,000)