INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
As the holiday season nears, the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent in September, with a notable rise in female workers joining the labor force, particularly in the retail industry, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday.
Preliminary results of the PSA’s September round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed the unemployment rate moved at its lowest pace in three months or since the 3.1 percent in June, translating to 1.89 million jobless Filipinos.
This was lower compared to the 4 percent jobless rate in the previous month and 4.5 percent last year.
READ: August 2024 unemployment rate falls to 4%, says PSA
In September, the female labor force participation rate (LFPR) increased to 55.7 percent, up from 54.7 percent in August and 53.4 last year.
Of this, 21 million women were employed, much higher than the 20.54 million in the previous month and 19.66 million in September 2023.
The country’s LFPR – the proportion of the total labor in the working-age population of 15 years old and over – went up to 65.7 percent from 64.8 percent in the previous month and 64.1 a year ago.
September’s employment rate increased to 96.3 percent, up from 96 percent in August and 95.6 percent last year. In terms of level, there were 49.87 million employed Filipinos during the month, higher than 49.15 million in the previous month and 47.67 million a year ago.
The underemployment rate – the share of those already working but still looking for more work or longer working hours to total employed population – increased to 11.9 percent from 11.2 percent in August and 10.7 percent in September 2023.
This translated to 5.94 million Filipinos looking for an additional job or longer working hours.