Jobless rate of 7.7%

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Jobless rate rose to 7.7% in January

NSO reports ‘insignificant’ rise
By Ronnel Domingo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 09:26:00 03/17/2009

MANILA, Philippines — (UPDATE 2) The unemployment rate in January rose by 0.3 percentage point to 7.7 percent in January, a change which the National Statistics Office in its latest Labor Force Survey described as "insignificant."

As of January, there were some 2.8 million unemployed. Data from the NSO showed that 37.1 million Filipinos had entered the labor force, of which 34.3 million got jobs.

Based on NSO's definition, unemployed people are those aged 15 years and over, who have no jobs or are not running a business and are actively looking for jobs but are unable to find any.

Unemployed also refers to those who, at the time of the survey, are not looking for jobs because they believe there are none available, or because of temporary disability or sickness or bad weather, or because they have pending job applications or interviews.

The country’s jobless rate climbed in January to the highest since April, and analysts said it would rise further as the country feels the impact of the financial crisis.

About 275,000 people lost their jobs since October and the latest quarterly report from the statistics office showed unemployment turning higher after falling last year.

It had dropped to 6.8 percent in October from 7.4 percent in July and 8.0 percent in April.

However, analysts said the data is not seasonally adjusted and they believe the actual rate could be understated.

"The actual data is very seasonal so you've always got to take it with a grain of salt," said Nicholas Bibby, regional economist and strategist at Barclays Capital.

"It is slightly up compared with what it was last year. This is understandable given the weakness that we are seeing coming through especially for the electronics sector," he said.

The Philippines’ jobless rate is the second highest among the biggest Southeast Asian economies, behind Indonesia, which reported its latest unemployment rate for August 2008 as 8.4 percent.

The unemployment rate in Thailand at the end of last year was 1.4 percent, below Singapore's 2.6 percent, Malaysia's 3.3 percent and Vietnam's urban reading of 4.65 percent.

In the Philippines, job losses and reduced work hours have been on the rise particularly in the semiconductor and electronics sector, which produce just over half of the country's exports revenues, as global demand shrank.

"Overall, I think the real unemployment rate should be higher than this," said Simon Wong, economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. "I would expect it to move higher for the rest of 2009."

About 210,000 were added to the number of underemployed, those who have jobs but want to work more, an increase of 3.5 percent from October, the government said.

The percentage of underemployed climbed to 18.2 percent of the total employed in January from 17.5 percent in October.

The government says that about a third of the 90-million population is poor, calculated as families of five living on less than the equivalent of $3 a day.

Of the 34.3 million people employed in January, more than half, or 51.2 percent, worked in services.

Farming was the second-biggest employer with 34.6 percent, with the rest working in the industry, particularly manufacturing.

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