(Eagle News Service) – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) reported significant gains in the labor market with the unemployment rate dropping to its lowest in 10 years.
This was based on employment figures for October 2014 which also revealed that better quality jobs had been generated.
This statement came after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released the results of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) for October 2014. The survey showed that the number of employed Filipinos increased by 2.8 percent to reach 38.8 million from 37.8 million in the same period last year. This meant 1.05 million jobs had been generated.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said “the improved employment numbers also translated to better quality jobs.”
He said around 1.03 million of the total employment generated in October 2014 were considered full time.
“Consistent with this is the increase in remunerative wage and salary workers, particularly in private establishments,” he said.
All major sectors posted increased employment with services as the main driver of growth. It accounted for more than half (53.7%) of employed workers and had the level of employment increased by 3.3 percent or by 675 thousand workers over a year ago.
“With the broad-based growth in employment, we are provided an optimistic outlook on the country’s economic performance in the fourth quarter of 2014,” the Cabinet official said.
The labor force participation rate (LFPR) also expanded further to 64.3 in October 2014 from 63.9 in October 2013. This indicates that the labor market grew to about 41.3 million, absorbing 925 thousand new labor entrants.
“The consistently high LFPR for the past three quarters sends a strong signal that more Filipinos are encouraged to join the labor force. This could largely be attributed to the momentum created by the strong economic growth performance over the past four years,” said Balisacan, who is also NEDA Director-General.
Moreover, the unemployment rate of 6.0 percent for the October 2014 survey round of the LFS is thus far the lowest recorded since April 2005.
NEDA noted that workers with higher educational attainment registered higher unemployment rates compared to workers with lower grade completion.
“This further supports the view that the lower income group (or those whose workers with lower educational attainment) can not afford to be unemployed while the more educated can prolong the time spent looking for work,” Balisacan said.
On the other hand, underemployment, which is the proportion of those who are already working but still wanted more work, rose further to 18.7 percent (or approximately 7.3 million underemployed workers), compared to the 18.0 percent registered in October 2013.
“Challenges to uplift the quality of employment across sectors remain. Hence, the government needs to sustain the implementation of multidimensional approach to raise investments, particularly in the rural areas, and improve productivity as well as income per capita in the country. It is also important to encourage income diversification and labor mobility in and out of agriculture,” said Balisacan.
He noted that the labor and employment data for the October 2014 LFS round still excludes Leyte, as the province was devastated by typhoon Yolanda and no survey was conducted in the province. To be comparable, the PSA also excluded the labor and employment data of the said province in the October 2013 LFS round. (with a NEDA report)
