Eased Covid-19 restrictions led to lower unemployment: Palace

MANILA – Malacañang on Friday welcomed the drop in the number of jobless Filipinos in January this year. This, after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the country’s unemployment rate fell from 6.6 percent in December 2021 to 6.4 percent in January 2022.

This translates to 2.93 million unemployed Filipinos, lower than the 3.27 million recorded in December last year and 3.96 million reported in January 2021.

“The Palace welcomes the results of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s January 2022 Labor Force Survey showing a decline of unemployed Filipinos from 3.96 million in January 2021 to 2.93 million in January 2022. This means a decrease of 1.04 million unemployed persons in the country,” acting presidential spokesperson and Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in a press statement.

Andanar said the further easing of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) restrictions helped increase the labor force participation in the country.

“We attribute the improvement in the employment situation to the effective recalibration of our strategies with the shift to Alert Level System and with more parts of the country being classified to Alert Level 1,” he said.

In a statement, the PSA said the employment situation in the country improved from 91.2 percent in January 2021 to 93.6 percent in January 2022.

The number of employed Filipinos, the PSA said, increased by 1.77 million from 41.25 million registered in January 2021 to 43.03 million recorded in January 2022.

Andanar said the country’s economic team has projected that around 170,000 Filipinos would no longer be jobless in the second quarter of 2022 following the shift to the most relaxed Alert Level 1 status.

“Our Economic Team estimates 170,000 less unemployed workers over the next quarter,” Andanar said.

Andanar also ensured that the government would continue to provide targeted relief for the transport and agriculture sectors and unconditional cash transfers for the bottom 50 percent of households amid inflationary pressures.

Alert Level 1 has been implemented in Metro Manila and 47 other places until March 31.