Unemployment rate stands at 7.1% in October

MANILA, Philippines - More than one in four adults in the Philippines are jobless or are looking for more work despite strong economic growth this year, data released yesterday by the National Statistics Office showed.

The October unemployment rate stood at 7.1 percent, unchanged from a year earlier but up slightly from July’s 6.9 percent, according to the latest quarterly report from the NSO.

The rate of underemployment – representing people working less than 40 hours a week and looking for fuller employment – jumped to 19.6 percent in October, compared with 19.4 percent a year earlier and 17.9 percent in July.

The weak employment numbers come despite the economy growing 7.5 percent in the first three quarters of the year.

The official figures also understate the employment problems in the Philippines, where a third of the population lives in poverty.

Although 61.2 million of the Philippines’ 95 million people are aged 15 and over, the statistics agency said just 39.3 million could be considered part of the labor force, with many others not even looking for work.

The October data also showed that one in three members of the Filipino workforce were unskilled.

Foreign business leaders in the Philippines say that to cut widespread poverty, annual economic growth must reach nine to10 percent and overseas investments need to rise more than 40-fold to $75 billion.

This would create 10 million jobs yearly instead of just the one million or so being created now, seven chambers of commerce said in a study released on Monday.

For officials of the Department of Labor and Employment, the NSO data on employment showed an improving job situation.

“Based on the October 2010 Labor Force Survey, there has been a decline in the number of people belonging to the so-called vulnerable employment or the informal workers,” DOLE’s Communication Office director Nicon Fameronag said.

“This means that the quality of employment has improved because there are more people in full-time employment in just three months since the new president took over,” he added.

The NSO labor force survey, done in October, showed that majority or 63.8 percent of the total 36.5 million employable Filipinos were in full-time employment while 35 percent were on part-time employment.

NSO administrator Carmelita Ericta said NCR or Metro Manila posted the highest unemployment rate at 12.6 percent while Cagayan Valley recorded the lowest at 2.6 percent.

There were more unemployed males (63.3 percent) than females (36.7 percent). Almost half (49.3 percent) of the unemployed were in age group 15-24 years.

Ericta said 33.3 percent of the unemployed were high school graduates, more than one-fifth or 22.9 percent were college undergraduates, while 19.4 percent were college graduates.

Earlier, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz warned of rising unemployment as a result of typhoon Juan’s devastation. The typhoon destroyed P1.5 billion worth of crops.

She said unemployment rate for October was normally high because it was the typhoon season, but it could even go higher this year considering the devastation wrought by typhoon Juan.

But Fameronag said Baldoz’s emergency employment programs as well as other measures have tempered unemployment.

“Initially our programs have already shown minimal results, but we are still waiting for the full impact of these reforms hopefully next year so we are hopeful that the coming year would be much better,” Fameronag said.