The unemployment rate in the Philippines stood at 4.5% in October 2022, down from 7.4% in October 2021, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The 4.5% rate is a return to pre-pandemic levels and translates to 2.24 million unemployed Filipinos in October 2022. This is a decline of 1.26 million from the 3.50 million unemployed reported in October 2021, and lower by 256,000 compared to the 2.50 million unemployed in September 2022.

Underemployed persons or employed persons who expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with longer hours of work was registered at 6.67 million translating to an underemployment rate of 14.2%. This was lower than the reported rate in October 2021 (16.1%) and in September 2022 (15.4%).

The country’s employment rate continued to pick-up to 95.5% in October 2022, from 95.0% in the previous month and from 92.6% in October 2021.

The estimated employment rate this October 2022 was the highest rate recorded since January 2020 and represented pre pandemic levels. aIn terms of level, the number of employed Filipinos in October 2022 was estimated at 47.11 million, from 43.82 million in the same period last year. In September 2022, there were 47.58 million employed persons.

By broad industry group, the services sector continued to dominate the employment market having the largest share of employed persons of about 59.2% in October. The agriculture and the industry sectors accounted for 22.5% and 18.3% of the employed persons, respectively.

In terms of year-on-year change, the top five sub-sectors with the highest increase on the number of employed persons from October 2021 to October 2022 were the following:

a.     Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (672,000);
b. Transportation and storage (553,000);
c. Construction (426,000)
d. Accommodation and food service activities (407,000); and
e. Administrative and support service activities (366,000).

The labour force participation rate (LFPR) in October 2022 was registered at 64.2% or about 49.35 million Filipinos aged 15 years old and over who were either employed or unemployed.

This LFPR was higher than the reported rate in the same month in 2021 at 62.6% but posted a month-on-month decline of 732,000 individuals from the 50.08 million reported in September 2022.

The average weekly hours worked of an employed person in October 2022 increased to 40.2 hours, from 39.7 hours per week in October 2021 and from 39.6 hours in September 2022.