Unemployed Filipinos rose to 4.2M in February —PSA

The number of jobless or unemployed Filipinos rose to 4.2 million in February this year, results of the latest Labor Force Survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed Tuesday.

At a virtual press conference, National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said the unemployment rate in the second month of 2021 clocked in at 8.8% equivalent to 4.2 million jobless adults — ages 15 and above — from 8.7% or four million unemployed individuals in January.

The February unemployment rate is the third highest since April 2020 — the highest unemployment rate registered at 17.6% during the peak of strict nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The February round of the PSA’s Labor Force Survey (LFS) is the first of the monthly rounds to be conducted by the Statistics agency.

“Simula Pebrero 2021, ang buwanang LFS ay isasagawa sa pagitan ng regular na LFS upang magkaroon ng high frequency data on labor and employment bilang isa sa mga basehan sa paggawa ng polisiya at plano, lalo na iyong may kinalaman sa COVID-19,” Mapa said.

(Starting February 2021, the monthly LFS will be conducted in between the regular LFS in order to come up with high frequency data on labor and employment as basis for policy-making and planning, especially those related to COVID-19.)

Meanwhile, the number of employed persons or those with jobs or businesses stood at 43.2 million, higher by 1.9 million compared to 41.2 million recorded in January.

Despite the increase in the number of employed persons, the employment rate declined slightly to 91.2% in February from 91.3% in January.

Mapa attributed the discrepancy between the rise in employed persons despite the increase in unemployed persons to the surge in labor force participation rate — the number of adults who are actively looking for work either employed or unemployed — to 63.5% last month, equivalent to 47.3 million from 60.5% or 45.2 million in January.

The PSA chief said the rise in labor force participation rate was due to the further reopening of the economy during the period.

“May expectation naman na mataas ang unemployment rate dahil marami ang pumasok sa labor force at naman lahat nabigyan ng trabaho... Mas marami man ang employed, tumaas din ang underemployment ng 1.3 million,” Mapa said.

(Our expectation is that the unemployment rate will rise as more people enter the labor force, while not everyone will were given jobs. Although the number of employed persons rose, the number of underemployed also rose by 1.3 million.)

In a separate statement, the economic managers said that the results of the latest LFS show continued improvements in the economy.

“Although the unemployment rate marginally increased to 8.8% in February 2021 from 8.7% in January 2021, the gradual reopening of the economy allowed more people to re-join the labor force,” the economic managers said.

“As a result, some 1.9 million jobs were restored, translating to an overall employment level of 43.2 million in February 2021. This means we have surpassed our pre-pandemic employment level of 42.6 million in January 2020.”

Underemployment

Underemployed persons or those who are employed but expressed desire to have additional work hours rose to 7.9 million in February from 6.6 million in January.

Underemployment rate rose 18.2% from 16% in the prior comparable month.

Mapa said that among the underemployed persons, 12.5 percentage points were visibly underemployed or employed persons who worked less than 40 hours in a week and wanted additional hours of work.

On the other hand, 5.7 percentage points were invisibly underemployed or employed persons who worked more than 40 hours in a week and who wanted additional hours of work, he said.

Sub-sectors

In terms of decline in employment, the following sub-sectors saw the largest decrease:

• accommodation and food service activities
• administrative and support service activities
• construction
• mining and quarrying
• electricity gas, steam, and air-conditioning supply

Meanwhile, the top five sub-sectors with the highest gain in employment from January to February were the following:

• activities for extraterritorial organizations and bodies
• water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities
• human health and social work activities
• other service activities
• wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles

Among men and women, labor force participation rate was higher for men at 76% than for women at 50.9% in February.

A higher employment rate was also registered for men at 91.6% compared to women at 90.5%, while unemployment rate among men is lower at 8.4% compared to women at 9.5%.

Similarly, men reported higher underemployment rate at 20.3% than women at 15.1%

“Tumaas naman sa 1.5% ang kabuuang bilang ng mga employed na hindi nakapasok o nakapagbukas ng negosyo nitong Pebrero 2021, mula sa naitalang 0.5% nitong Enero 2021,” Mapa said.

(The number of employed but were not able to go to work or open their businesses rose to 1.5% in February 2021, from 0.5% in January 2021.)

The primary reasons of employed but not able to go to work or open business are as follows:

• variable working time/nature of work
• reduction in clients/work
• ECQ/lockdown/COVID-19 pandemic

Mapa clarified that the results of the February LFS can only give reliable estimates on the national level, while the January or the quarterly surveys can give reliable estimates in both national and regional levels.

In terms of total households, the PSA surveyed 11,095 households for the February LFS round, lower than the 44,247 surveyed in the January round.

From the said number of households surveyed in February, 34,307 were individuals ages 15 and above while 135,131 were surveyed during the January LFS round. —KBK, GMA News