Agriculture’s share in PH employment increases in January

The agriculture sector’s share in local employment increased in January this year from a year ago, latest data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday showed. (PNA photo)

MANILA — The agriculture sector’s share in local employment increased in January this year from a year ago, latest data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday showed.

Based on the data, about 10.9 million people were employed in the agriculture sector as of January 2018, accounting for 26 percent of the national employment in the first month of the year.

The agriculture sector’s share in national employment was slightly higher from its 25.5 percent share in January 2017, when it gave work to some 10 million people.

The PSA divides the national employment into three sectors–services, agriculture, and industry.

Agriculture remains the second biggest employer in the country among the three major sectors.

The services sector has remained the biggest employer nationwide, employing more than half of the working population, or 55.

9 percent of the country’s total workforce of 41.8 million people in January 2018.

The services sector’s employment share, however, was lower than its 57.1 percent share of the country’s labor force of about 39.4 million people in January 2017.

Conversely, the industry sector, which accounts for the least number of workers in the country’s local labor sector, raised its employment share to 18.1 percent in January 2018 from 17.4 percent in the same month last year.

The PSA defines employed persons as those who are in the labor force and who reported either being at work or having a job or business.

“Persons at work are those who did some work even for an hour during the reference period,” the PSA explained.

The agency noted that among all sub-sectors of the major groups of agriculture, services, and industry, the sub-sectors agriculture, hunting, and forestry collectively had the biggest share of January employment during both 2018 and 2017.

Meanwhile, the services sector’s wholesale and retail trade and motor vehicles repair sub-sectors registered double-digit employment shares of 19.8 percent and 20.1 percent in 2018 and 2017, respectively.