Unemployment rate settled at 6.9 percent in July, the lowest since April 2020 at the start of the pandemic, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Tuesday.
Data from the PSA showed that 3.1 million persons 15 years old and over were unemployed in July. This was lower by 1.5 million than the 4.6 million reported in July 2020. The July 2021 figure is also lower by 700,000 than the 3.8 million reported in June 2021.
Employment rate in July improved to 93.1 percent, the highest since April 2020. The employment rate in July 2020 was reported at 90.0 percent.
"In terms of magnitude, employed persons were estimated at 41.7 million in July 2021 or 3.4 million lower than the estimate in June 2021 [45.1 million] and 0.4 million more than the estimate for July 2020 [41.3 million]," the PSA said.
Meanwhile, underemployed individuals reached 8.7 million in July or 20.9 percent of the 41.7 million employed individuals during the period. This is the highest underemployment rate since the pandemic in April 2020.
Visibly underemployed or those working less than 40 hours in a week but still expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours was estimated at 4.5 million or 10.8 percent of the total employed persons.