Employment up, underemployment down in October

By: Ben O. de Vera - 8 years ago

The number of Filipinos without jobs as well as those looking for longer working hours both eased in October, the government reported on Thursday.

Preliminary estimates of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) October 2015 Labor Force Survey showed that the employment rate slightly improved to 94.4 percent in October from 94 percent a year ago.

The PSA noted that the October 2014 survey did not cover Leyte province, which then was still reeling from the damage brought about by super-typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) in November 2013.

The underemployment rate, meanwhile, went down to 17.7 percent in October from 18.7 percent last year.

The PSA defines the underemployed as “employed persons who express 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.”CDG