The ranks of unemployed Filipinos rose month-on-month in December despite ease of movement restrictions, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported this morning.

The preliminary estimates of the agency’s latest round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed about 113,000 Filipinos became jobless from November to December last year.

This brought the total tally of unemployed Filipinos to 3.272 million that month. It pushed the unemployment rate to 6.6% in December from 6.5% in November.

Meanwhile, around 910,000 Filipinos entered the labor force month-on-month in December, bringing the total labor force size to 49.546 million.

This translated to a participation rate to 65.1% from 64.2% in November. It was the highest labor force participation rate since the monthly LFS in 2021 and the 64.2% in April 2014 using the quarterly survey.

The quality of available jobs slightly improved as underemployment rate — the share of people with jobs but still looking for more work or longer working hours — eased to 14.7% in December from the four-month high of 16.7% in November.

In absolute figures, this was equivalent to 6.811 million underemployed Filipinos, down by around 806,000 from 7.617 million in November.

Around 797,000 Filipinos got jobs in December from the previous month, bring the total employed individuals to 46.274 million. However, this represented an employment rate of 93.4%, a tad lower than November’s 93.5%.

More than half (56.6%) were employed in the services sector that month, while the rest went to agriculture (25.6%), and industry (17.8%). — M. I. U. Catilogo

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