(Eagle News)–Unemployment rate in the Philippines slightly rose to 4% in April, according to Philippine Statistics Authority data.
The unemployment rate the month before was pegged at 3.9%.
According to the PSA, the April rate translates to 2.04 million unemployed individuals.
The employment rate was pegged at 96% or 48.36 million employed persons.
By broad industry group, the services sector remained the top sector in terms of the number of employed persons, with a share of 61.4 percent of the total employed persons.
The agriculture and industry sectors accounted for 20.3 percent and 18.3 percent of the employed persons, respectively.
The top five sub-sectors in terms of annual increase in the number of employed persons in April, meanwhile, were:
- Accommodation and food service activities (638 thousand);
- Construction (378 thousand);
- Transportation and storage (289 thousand);
- Manufacturing (285 thousand); and
- Other service activities (200 thousand).
The following posted the highest annual decreases in terms of number of employed individuals:
- Agriculture and forestry (-818 thousand);
- Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (-587 thousand)
- Human health and social work activities (-85 thousand);
- Public administration and defense; compulsory social security (-72 thousand); and
- Real estate activities (-68 thousand)
Wage and salary workers continued to account for the largest share of employed persons with 63.6 percent, followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee at 27.9 percent and unpaid family workers at 6.5 percent.
Employers in own family-operated farm or business posted the lowest share, at 2.1 percent.