Strong employment creation signals recovery — NEDA
The Philippines’ strong employment creation last December 2021 signifies that the economy is slowly recovering from the pandemic, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
In a report released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the unemployment rate in the country increased to 6.6% in December from 6.5% in November.
However, further data shows that this was offset by the improvement in the labor force participation rate, from 64.2 percent to 65.1%.
This meant that around 800,000 individuals were able to find work as mobility restrictions were relaxed towards the end of last year, bringing the net employment creation to 3.7 million above pre-pandemic levels.
The underemployment rate also declined from 16.7% in November to 14.7% in December, as more high-quality jobs were opened in the country.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua attributed this success to the acceleration of the vaccination program and the reopening of more sectors in the Philippines.
He added that they are looking forward “to building on these gains in 2022 now that we have contained the spread of Omicron and have reverted to Alert Level 2 in the National Capital Region and several provinces.”
