Unemployment Rate In Region 12 Drops To 2.3%

Region 12’s unemployment rate dropped to 2.3 percent last year, the lowest in the entire Mindanao during the period.

Ofelia Domingo, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Region 12 director, said Friday they recorded around 67,000 unemployed persons in the region as of the end of 2015 or around 13,000 less than the 80,000 in the previous year.

She said the region’s employable population or residents who are considered as already in the working age of 15 years old and above is currently at an estimated 2,809,000, which is up from 2,758,000 in 2014.

With the drop in the unemployment rate, the official said the number of employed persons in the region surged to 2,742,000 or 97.7 percent last year, from 2,687,000 or 97.1 percent in 2014.

“This is the first time for our unemployment rate to drop to this level and we’re continually working to sustain this record,” Domingo said in a press conference.

A report released by DOLE-12 showed that the region’s underemployment rate, which is the percentage of the underemployed to the total employed, also went down to 18.6 percent last year from 21.8 percent in 2014.

Such figure is equivalent to 510,000 underemployed persons in in 2015 from 584,000 in the previous year.

But the report noted that the area’s labor force participation rate dropped to 63.8 percent when compared to the previous 65 percent.

Labor force participation rate is the proportion of the population aged 15 and older that are economically active or “all people who supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period.”

Domingo said that in terms of unemployment rate, Region 12’s 2.3 percent is the lowest among Mindanao’s six regions in 2015.

She said it also very much lower than the national average of 6.6 percent recorded by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Region 9 or Zamboanga Peninsula posted an unemployment rate of 2.5 percent, followed by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with 2.7 percent, Region 10 or Northern Mindanao with 5.2 percent, Region 11 or Davao Region with 6 percent, and Caraga Region with 6.5 percent.

The official said the area’s employment rate of 97.7 percent is also the highest in the country during the period.

Region 9 recorded an employment rate of 97.5 percent while Region 2 or Cagayan Valley posted 97.4 percent. The country’s employment rate reached 93.4 percent.(PNA) JMC/AVE