More workers lost jobs in 9 months to Sept.

The number of retrenched workers in the January-September period of 2013 totaled 33,657, surpassing the the previous full-year figure.

The Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) said that, throughout 2012, 31,778 people lost their jobs.

Most companies cited “economic reasons” as the reason why they had to lay off workers.

In 2011, 35,526 workers lost their jobs.

However, the number of establishments that said they did displace workers in 2013 dropped to 1,764 in the first nine months.

In 2011, 2,211 companies reported that they had to fire workers. That figure declined in 2012 to 2,064 firms.

In terms of regions, more workers in Metro Manila (16,041) lost their jobs as of September last year. Retrenched workers in Central Luzon totaled 5,943, while in Western Visayas, 4,530 were fired from their jobs.

Based on the latest Labor Force Survey of the National Statistics Office, the unemployment rate in October 2013 stood at 6.5 percent.

This means that, of the country’s 45.33 million-strong labor force, 2.6 million could not find jobs. Compared to a year before, the number of unemployed Filipinos declined by about 161,000.

The statistics agency also reported that the number of Filipinos who sought additional hours of work totaled 6.77 million during the same period—387,000 fewer than that of the year before.

The BLES is giving more attention to data on the underemployed, which it says provides a better picture of the Philippine labor market.

According to the agency, knowing that for example more than one out of five Filipinos who had jobs did not have enough work or were not paid enough was more alarming than knowing that less than one out of 10 didn’t have a job.

The BLES noted that the International Labor Organization has long recognized that unemployment statistics have more relevance in industrial countries than in developing ones.

In industrialized countries, “the labor market is oriented toward paid employment, and the channels for the exchange of labor market information exist and are widely used,” BLES said. “The same, however, cannot be said for developing countries, particularly in economies where agriculture remains dominant or is a significant sector, and where the labor market is characterized by a high prevalence of self-employment and employment of unpaid workers.”