Unemployment rate drops anew

MANILA, Philippines - The number of unemployed people nationwide continues to go down, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday.

DOLE officials said this was clear proof that the country’s economy is improving.

Results of the April 2012 Labor Force Survey (LFS) indicated that the number of unemployed people in the country went down slightly to 2.8 million from an estimated 2.87 million in the same period last year.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the government has been anticipating a decline in the country’s unemployment rate mainly because of the continuing growth in the economy.

“We have been expecting good news from our NSO survey because of the country’s high economic performance. We expect this economic growth to translate into more employment,” Baldoz said.

She said unemployment rate was traditionally high during the April survey due to the large number of new graduates joining the labor force.

But she said the survey showed that unemployment rate even went down.

She also observed that the country has been posting a decline in the unemployment rate for the past five rounds of NSO survey.

Baldoz said increased government spending as well as emergency employment program of the government has helped boost employment and ease the number of jobless.

Based on the survey by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the employment rate in April 2011 also grew to 92.8 percent.

Among the regions, only the National Capital Region (NCR) had an employment rate below 90.0 percent.

NSO chief Carmencita Ericta said the number of employed persons in April 2012 was estimated at 37.8 million. Those employed in the services sector comprised the largest group, making up more than half (51.4 percent) of the total employed.

Of the employed persons in the services sector, those engaged in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles accounted for the highest percentage (19.0 percent of total employed).

Workers in the agriculture sector comprised the second largest group, consisting of one-third (33.0 percent) of the total employed.

Only 15.6 percent of the total employed were in the industry sector, with the manufacturing sub-sector contributing the largest share in this sector (8.4 percent of the total employed).

Among the various occupation groups, laborers and unskilled workers comprised the largest group, making up 33.2 percent of the total employed persons in April 2012.

Farmers, forestry workers and fishermen were the second largest group with 14.7 percent share.

Self-employed workers without paid employees comprised 29.3 percent of the total employed in April 2012.

Unpaid family workers accounted for 11.9 percent of the total employed. Employers in own family-operated farm or business made up 3.3 percent.

Employed persons are classified as either full-time workers or part-time workers.

Full-time workers are those who work for 40 hours or more while part-time workers work for less than 40 hours.

Of the total employed persons in April 2012, 55.1 percent were working full time while 42.8 percent were part-time workers.

However, the underemployed, or those employed persons who still desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, slightly increased to 7.3 million from last year’s 7.12 million figure.

Metro Manila has the highest unemployment rate at 10.4 percent, while men accounted for the bulk of unemployed at 62.3 percent.

More than half (51.7 percent) of the unemployed belong to the 15-24 years age group, while those aged between 25 to 34 years accounted for 28.2 percent of the jobless.

Almost one-third (32.8 percent) of the unemployed were high school graduates, 13.8 percent were college undergraduates, while 21.0 percent were college graduates.

Meanwhile, Baldoz urged students who were not able to enroll in tertiary education to look into the short-term food and beverage (F&B) courses and other vocational courses so they could easily get employed.

“In only a few months, or just even weeks, one could be already adequately equipped with skills required in some of the high-paying careers in the labor market if they take a short-term course such as food and beverage,” she said.

She said there are training institutions that offer technical and vocational training programs for a shorter duration at a more economical rate.