PSA: Unemployment rate rises to 8.8 percent in February

(Eagle News) — Unemployment rate in the Philippines rose to 8.8 percent in February, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Tuesday, March 30.

According to the PSA, the 8.8 percent, which is 0.1 percent higher than the unemployment rate recorded the previous month, translates to 4.2 million unemployed Filipinos aged 15 and above.

This is around 234,000 higher than the 4 million reported in January 2021.

According to the PSA, the services sector remained dominant, with with a 58.4 percent share of the total unemployed Filipinos.

This was followed by the agriculture sector, with a 23.9 percent share, and the industry sector, with a 17.7 percent share.

According to the PSA, the top five sub-sectors with the highest gain in employment from January 2021 to February 2021 were:

1. activities for extraterritorial organizations and bodies (51.8%),
2. water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (24.1%),
3. human health and social work activities (12.7%),
4. other service activities (11.9%), and
5. wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (11.5%)

“By occupation group, elementary occupation had the largest proportion of employed persons (27.6%), followed by the service and sales workers (20.5%), and skilled agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers (12.7%),” the PSA said. With a report from Meanne Corvera, Eagle News