(Eagle News) — The country’s employment rate rose to 95.6% in August, Philippine Statistics Authority data released on Friday, Oct. 6, showed.
According to the PSA data, this is 0.4 percent higher than the employment rate reported the month before, and 0.9 percent higher than the rate reported in August last year.
The country’s August 2023 employment rate translates to 48.07 million people employed.
The PSA said the top five sub-sectors in terms of annual increase in the number of employed persons in August 2023 were:
- Fishing and aquaculture (+572,000);
- Construction (+534,000);
- Agriculture and forestry (+378,000);
- Human health and social work activities (+153,000); and
- Administrative and support service activities (+143,000).
The following sub-sectors, on the other hand, saw the highest annual drop in the number of employed people:
- Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles
(-1.21 million); - Public administration and defense; compulsory social security
(-228,000); - Financial and insurance activities (-197,000);
- Information and communication (-134,000); and
- Mining and quarrying (-89,000)
The PSA said wage and salary workers continued to account for the largest share of employed persons, at 62.6 percent of the total, followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee at 27.3 percent and unpaid family workers at 8.0 percent.
Employers in own family-operated farm or business posted the lowest share of the total employed persons, at 2.1 percent.
According to the PSA data, of the employed, however, the number of underemployed people was at 5.63 million, for an underemployment rate of 11.7 percent.
This underemployment rate is lower than the reported 14.7% rate in August 2022 and the 15.9% rate reported in July 2023, according to the PSA.