Employment Increased to 96% in the April 2024 Labor Force Survey, PSA

The country’s employment rate increased to 96% in April this year according to the Philippines Statistics Authority’s (PSA) latest report on June 6, 2024.

This is higher compared to both April 2023 and January 2024 with a rate of 95.5%.

In April of this year, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) was 64.1%, which is lower than 65.1% in April 2023, but higher than 61.1% in January 2024. This means that around 50.40 million people aged 15 years and over were either working or actively seeking work in April 2024.

Despite the increased number of employment, the underemployment rate in April 2024 increased to 14.6% much higher than the 12.9% in April 2024 and 13.9% in January 2024.

Additionally, approximately 7.04 million people who were employed wanted to either work more hours or find new jobs with longer hours.

The services sector dominated employment, accounting for 61.4% of the 48.36 million employed persons. The agriculture sector made up 20.3%, and the industry sector 18.3%.

Key sub-sectors that saw an increase in employment from April 2023 to April 2024 include:

– Accommodation and food service activities (638,000 new jobs)
– Construction (378,000 new jobs)
– Transportation and storage (289,000 new jobs)
– Manufacturing (285,000 new jobs)
– Other service activities (200,000 new jobs)

Contrarily, the sectors with the highest annual decreases in employment were:

– Agriculture and forestry (-818,000 jobs)
– Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (-587,000 jobs)
– Human health and social work activities (-85,000 jobs)
– Public administration and defense; compulsory social security (-72,000 jobs)
– Real estate activities (-68,000 jobs)

Meanwhile, Wage and salary workers comprised 63.6% of the employed population in April 2024. Self-employed individuals without paid employees 27.9%, unpaid family workers 6.5%, and employers in family-operated businesses 2.1%.

Among wage and salary workers, those in private establishments held the largest share at 78.7%, followed by government employees at 14.0%.

Youth Employment

Youth labor force participation decreased to 32.6%in April 2024 from 34.7% in April 2023.

The youth employment rate dropped slightly to 89.5% from 90.0% in the same period.

Additionally, the proportion of youth not in education, employment, or training (NEET) rose to 11.0% from 10.3%. (ASC)