Insecure work

At the rate we are going, people in the Philippines are struggling when it comes to being gainfully employed and this is due to poor quality jobs that lack benefits and security. But more than just a lack of jobs, there exists a widespread reality of precarious employment. The Philippines has fallen into what is called the “underemployment trap,” where a job is considered insecure if it does not provide enough hours or income in order to survive.

In January of 2026, the unemployment rate surged to 5.8 percent marking a significant jump from 4.4 percent in December 2025 and becoming the highest jobless rate since mid-2022. This is not just a random spike and Filipinos who are officially employed are actively seeking more hours or income in order to live a comfortable life. Point is, millions of Filipinos have jobs but are still “labor poor.” They are working, but they are not working enough hours or earning enough to survive the 2026 cost of living.

Only about one third of Filipino workers have “formal” jobs with security and benefits and the rest are in the precarious “informal” sector. While the services industry is the engine of the Philippine economy, it is also the most volatile. In 2026, the issue isn’t just about unemployment; it is about underemployment and this is critical as the matter focuses on Filipinos who have jobs but sadly, still cannot make ends meet. Simply put, Filipinos aren’t necessarily jobless – they are “income-less,” with people wanting more hours to put into work.

The issue is not a lack of work, but a lack of sufficient work that pays a living wage. The problem? When half of your full-time workers are looking for second or third jobs, the national wage structure is fundamentally broken.

For too long, the narrative has praised Filipino “resilience” in the face of underemployment but to me, resilience is just a polite word to describe survival and Filipinos have been in survival mode for far too long. The goal therefore for 2026 shouldn’t just be about employment, but rather, economic dignity that provides health care, retirement and a wage that outpaces inflation.

There is an invisible struggle for the underemployed Filipino that goes beyond the numbers and in 2026, the conversation has moved past counting jobs to measuring dignity.

One of the most frustrating aspects of underemployment in 2026 is that many of the underemployed are actually highly educated. But while thousands graduate every year, only a handful are actually job-ready for high-paying roles – which leaves others to take on jobs that do not pay well. What a waste of human capital to see a licensed teacher take on a part-time delivery rider job just to earn more or worse, make ends meet.

Of course this is not about putting down our delivery riders for without them, we are all crippled in ways that would add further stress to this already unfortunate situation. Whether we admit it or not, such a scenario is a clear indication that the country is losing its investment on education. We have always said that education is the greatest equalizer but if we do not purposely dive deep into this issue, we will lose our ability to achieve a stable job market in the long run.

None of us are surprised to hear Filipinos talk about “rackets” or “gigs” simply because of insecure work conditions that push them to look for more opportunities. We love to focus on unemployment but the real discussion to date is about underemployment, where a new class of “perpetual freelancers” is created – the type of people who never stop working because they do not have a social safety net within reach. As expected, this kind of scenario carries a heavy mental health toll that can lead to a sense of hopelessness and disconnection because of a generation that is stuck in survival mode and cannot participate in nation building as they have already become cynical about their future.

The sad reality, however, is that if the Philippines continues to offer only such types of opportunities, the country will continue to export its best talents to other countries that can commit to offer full employment contracts.

Inflation, on the other hand, is the lens through which all underemployment is felt. Our government’s definition of employed is outdated and we need a metric that measures living wage to determine who is truly underemployed in today’s Philippine economy.

Underemployment is such a heavy burden for our people because it is our economy’s way of saying “we have work for you all but don’t expect us to see your potential.” Such disrespect for someone’s capabilities in life proves that the Philippines has no shortage of workers but rather a shortage of career paths.

At this point, it is high time for us to challenge the Trabaho Para Sa Bayan Plan in order for the program to focus on quality instead of quantity. Having a job in 2026 is not enough and a one-size-fits-all national policy won’t work because what we need right now is region-specific industrialization and, more importantly, we need to make the urgent shift from resiliency to dignity in a quality crisis economy.