PH unemployment rate at 6.4% in Feb, country’s lowest since COVID started — PSA
The unemployment rate in the Philippines is on a standstill at 6.4% in February, translating to 3.13 million jobless Filipinos following the further easing of mobility and quarantine restrictions
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), this is the country’s lowest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last March 2020.
This figure is also significantly 1.06 million lower compared to last year’s 4.19 million unemployed individuals.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said that the relaxed movement in key cities “led to significant employment creation during the month.”
Labor force participation increased to 60.5% in February from 63.8% at the start of the year. This led to a net employment creation of 2.5 million over the same period — bringing the country’s employment to 2.9 million more than pre-pandemic levels.
The quality of jobs also improved as seen in the decline in the underemployment rate from 14.9% to 14%.
Chua stated that they “aim to shift the entire country to alert level 1 to enable even more Filipinos to find work.”
As of April 1, 79% of the economy has been placed under Alert Level 1, the most relaxed level of restriction in the Philippines.
