Unemployment Rate in March at 7.1%, Lowest since Covid Outbreak

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), March presented the lowest level of the unemployment rate since the outbreak of the global pandemic.

The March 2021 round of the Labor Force Survey’s (LFS) preliminary results presented approximately 3.441 million unemployed Filipinos, which is a significant drop from 4.187 million during the February LFS round and 3.953 million during the January LFS round.

This puts the unemployment rate in March at 7.1%, the lowest it has reached since January 2020, which was 5.3%, and April 2020’s record-high at 17.6%.

The number of underemployed Filipinos in March was at 7.355 million, lower than the 7.850 million in February but higher than the 6.589 in January. This eased March’s underemployment rate to 16.2% from 18.2% in the previous month.

Meanwhile, the employment rate was recorded to be much higher in March at 92.9% from 91.2% in February. This translates to 45.332 million employed Filipinos in March against the 43.153 million in February, resulting in net job creation of 2.178 million.

March reported 39.7 working hours a week on average, an increase from the 38.9 average in February. Full-time workers accounted for 62.2% of the employed Filipinos in March, higher than 59.9% in February. Part-time workers, on the other hand, made up 36.7% of the total employed, which was a drop from 38.5% in the previous month.

“With the recovery of the economy after the ECQ was relaxed in mid-2020, 11.5 million jobs have been generated as of March 2021, more than offsetting the 8.7 million jobs that were lost in the period March to May 2020. This translates to a net job creation of 2.8 million jobs,” explained in a joint statement by  Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, and Budget and Management Secretary Wendel E. Avisado.

The PSA clarified that the March 2021 LFS round was conducted between March 8 to 27, before another enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was implemented within the NCR+ Bubble — Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite — on March 29.

Despite the labor force growing as more Filipinos get employed, the unemployment rate of 7% is still “relatively high” said University of the Philippines Professor Emeritus Rene E. Ofreneo.

“Job creation is not reducible to a question of ‘opening up the market,’ or going back to the ‘old normal.’ The world has changed and we have to adjust to it,” Ofreneo explained.

Source: Business World