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The number of employed persons in February 2023 was estimated at 48.80 million, an increase of 3.32 million from the 45.48 million employed persons reported in February last year.
Moreover, the unemployment rate in February 2023 also remained steady at 4.8 per cent, the same rate as the previous month. This is a significant improvement from February 2022, when the unemployment rate was higher at 6.4 per cent. The number of unemployed persons was 2.47 million out of 51.27 million Filipinos who were in the labour force in February 2023, as per the Labor Force Survey by the PSA.
The labour force participation rate (LFPR) in February 2023 was registered at 66.6 per cent, which was higher than the January 2023 and February 2022 LFPR at 64.5 per cent and 63.8 per cent, respectively.
The number of underemployed persons, or those employed persons who expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have additional job or a new job with longer hours of work, was recorded at 6.29 million. This translates to an underemployment rate of 12.9 per cent, which was lower than the reported underemployment rate in February 2022 (14 per cent) and in January 2023 (14.1 per cent).
From the top five sub-sectors with the highest year-on-year (YoY) change in the number of employed persons from February 2022 to February 2023, wholesale and retail trade recorded 701,000 people.
Meanwhile, the top five sub-sectors with the largest drop in terms of employed persons from February 2022 to February 2023 included manufacturing, with a drop of 38,000 people, as per the survey.
The wage and salary workers continued to contribute the largest share of employed persons, followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee and unpaid family workers.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)