The Philippines’ unemployment rate dropped to 4.3% in May 2023 from 6.0% in May 2022 and 4.5% in April 2023, according to preliminary estimates from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The May 2023 unemployment rate was the second lowest since April 2005, following the 4.2% unemployment rate in November 2022.

At the same time, the employment rate in May 2023 was estimated at 95.7%, which was higher than the reported employment rate in May 2022 at 94.0% and in April 2023 at 95.5%.

In terms of magnitude, the number of employed persons was posted at 48.26 million in May 2023, higher than the reported number of employed persons in the same period last year at 46.08 million.

By sector, services continued its dominance of all the sectors having the largest share at 58.8% of the total employed population in May 2023. The agriculture and industry sectors accounted for 24.3% and 16.9% of the total employed persons, respectively.

The sub-sector with the highest year-on-year increase in the number of employed persons in May 2023 was agriculture and forestry (1.25 million).

Wage and salary workers continued to account for the largest share of employed persons with 60.5% of the total employed persons in May 2023. This was followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee at 28.1% and unpaid family workers at 9.2%. Employer in own family-operated farm or business had the lowest share at 2.2%.

The country’s labour force participation rate was registered at 65.3%, which was higher than the reported rate in May 2022 (64.0%) and in April 2023 (65.1%). In terms of magnitude, there were 50.43 million individuals aged 15 years old and over who were either employed or unemployed in May 2023.

Meanwhile, the average hours worked in a week by an employed person in May 2023 was 39.3 hours, which was slightly lower than the estimate in May 2022 at 39.8 hours per week. However, this was higher than the average hours worked in April 2023 at 36.9 hours per week.