Unemployment rate eases as alert level relaxes

MANILA – The country’s unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent in October from 8.9 percent in September as restrictions eased in most areas across the country, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Tuesday.

The unemployment rate for October is the third-lowest for this year, only behind July data at 6.9 percent and March data at 7.1 percent.

In a joint statement, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, and Budget and Management officer-in-charge Tina Rose Marie Canda said the unemployment numbers proved that the country is on track for “strong and early recovery.”

“The October 2021 labor force survey results affirmed the soundness of the government’s push to safely reopen the economy, restore employment, and manage the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). As we relaxed restrictions to Alert Level 2, more people were able to work while Covid-19 positivity, case fatality, and bed occupancy rates continued to improve,” the economic managers said.

They said 234,000 jobs were added to the labor market in October, bringing the total employment to 1.3 million above the pre-pandemic levels.

“Better employment outcomes in October were driven by the government’s policies that further reopened the economy safely, such as shifting to the alert level system and granular lockdowns from large-area and blanket quarantines and allowing more mobility for vaccinated individuals,” they added.

On the other hand, underemployment increased to 16.1 percent in October from 14.2 percent as more Filipinos desire to have additional work hours in their present jobs, or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with a longer work period.

The labor force participation rate slightly slowed down to 62.6 percent from 63.3 percent in the same period.

The economic managers said the government will push for its 10-point agenda to shift from a pandemic to an endemic paradigm.

The 10-point agenda includes metrics, vaccination, healthcare capacity, economy and mobility, schooling, domestic travel, international travel, digital transformation, pandemic flexibility bill, and medium-term preparation for pandemic resilience.

Included in the government’s strategy to bring back more jobs is the further reopening of the economy as it targets to bring down the alert level system at the lowest level by the start of 2022.

“Backed by a stronger healthcare system, we will solidify our recovery by reopening the economy to alert level 1 in January 2022. At the same time, to avert long-term productivity losses and restore more employment, we will resume face-to-face schooling in January 2022, increase public transport capacity for all transport types to 100 percent, and relax restrictions for domestic and international travel,” the economic managers said.