Philippine Unemployment drops to 6.4% in 2022 from 7.4% last October

The Philippine unemployment rate has dipped to its lowest since the beginning of the pandemic, however, job-hunting has remained a struggle due to the Omicron outbreak in early January.

Last March 18, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the unemployment rate decreased to 6.4% in January from 6.6% in December and 7.4% in October. However, given the drop in unemployment rate, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) stated that the labor force participation rate fell from 65.1% to 60.5% between October 2021 and January 2022. The LFPR is an estimate of an economy’s active workforce, where a drop indicated that people have either given up looking for jobs or were uninterested in employment.

“The Omicron surge caused a temporary decline in our employment levels. Now that we have contained the spread of the virus and shifted to Alert Level 1 in most parts of the country, we look forward to an improvement in employment outcomes in the coming months,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Chua said.

According to NEDA, 70% of the economy has shifted to Alert Level 1, bringing in about P10.8 billion per week in economic activity. The authority has also stated that there are 195,000 fewer unemployed Filipinos as compared to when the country was mostly in Alert Level 2.

“We reiterate the need for the full and urgent resumption of face-to-face classes to maximize the benefits of Alert Level 1. This can increase economic activity by around P12 billion per week due to the return of related services around schools. It will also free up the time of parents, one in four of whom have to skip or reduce work hours in order to assist their children with online classes at home,” Chua said.

Source: Rappler