The unemployment rate climbed to 8.7 percent as of January this year from just 5.3 percent a year ago, as the prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to affect businesses across the country, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Tuesday.
National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Dennis Mapa said in an online briefing on the January 2021 Labor Force Survey that the jobless rate remained the same as the October 2020 rate of 8.7 percent.
This was the lowest rate since unemployment rate hit 17.6 percent in April 2020 at the height of strict community quarantines imposed by the government to contain the virus spread.
“In terms of magnitude, around 4 million Filipinos 15 years old and over were unemployed in January 2021 compared to 2.4 million in January 2020,” Mapa said.
Meanwhile, the ranks of underemployed persons or those who expressed desire to have additional hours of work reached 6.6 million or 16 percent of the total employed persons in January 2021. This underemployment rate was higher than the October 2020 rate of 14.4 percent and the January 2020 rate of 14.8 percent.
The labor force participation rate in January was estimated at 60.5 percent and accounted for 45.2 million Filipinos 15 years and over who were in the labor force.
This is lower than the LFPR of 61.7 percent in January 2020 but higher than 58.7 percent in October.
Mapa said employment rate stood at 91.3 percent, the same as the October 2020 rate. This means that 41.2 million Filipinos were employed out of 45.2 million Filipinos in the labor force in January 2021. This was lower than the reported 94.7 percent in January 2020.
The National Economic and Development Authority said the latest employment statistics showed that between October 2020 and January 2021, some 1.4 million jobs were restored.
It said the labor force participation rate, or the proportion of the working age population that is either working or actively looking for work, increased from 58.7 percent to 60.5 percent.
The biggest improvement can be seen in the National Capital Region, where some 269,000 jobs were restored, it said.
Acting Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said in a joint statement that while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.7 percent, more opportunities from the easing of restrictions meant that more people were rejoining the labor force.
The economic managers said to accelerate economic growth and job creation this year, a three-pronged strategy was needed.
These included safely reopening the economy, while strictly adhering to public health protocols and intensifying “Prevent, Detect, Isolate, Treat and Reintegrate strategies”.
“Second, fully implementing the recovery package, especially those whose budgets have already been allocated but not yet fully spent. And third, ensuring timely implementation of the vaccine program to cover the entire adult population,” they said.
“The safe reopening of the economy requires a calibrated, more targeted approach,” the economic managers said. “On the one hand, we will need to be more vigilant in high-risk areas by strictly enforcing the health protocols and using localized quarantines. This way, we can reduce virus spread without affecting the healthy majority who are in need of jobs to address their hunger and other health concerns.”
They said the full and fast implementation of the recovery package would underpin economic growth this year and onwards.
The higher stimulus through the Bayanihan II, the 2020 budget extension, the 2021 budget and the swift enactment or implementation of key legislations, such as the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer Act, the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act and the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiative to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE) Act are all crucial, they said.
“We need to ensure that programs already budgeted for under Bayanihan II and under the 2020 and 2021 budgets are implemented quickly. Our recovery and long-term development prospects also hinge on accelerating the infrastructure program, which has the highest multiplier effect on jobs,” the economic managers said.