The jobless rate in the Philippines in April 2022 fell to 5.7 percent, the lowest since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The PSA said 2.76 million Filipinos aged 15 and above were unemployed, which was lower by 1.38 million from April 2021’s total.
There were about 45.63 million employed Filipinos in April 2022 for a year-on-year increase of about 2.36 million employed Filipinos from 43.27 million in April 2021.
The PSA said the following subsectors saw the highest year-on-year increase from April 2021 to April 2022:
- Administration and support service activities (+349 thousand);
- Accommodation and food service activities (+343 thousand);
- Transportation and storage (+289 thousand);
- Agriculture and forestry (+251 thousand); and
- Construction (+249 thousand).
In January 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s jobless rate was 5.3 percent. It drastically rose to 17.6 percent in April 2020 due to the stringent enhanced community quarantine.
March 2022’s jobless rate was 5.8 percent. John Ezekiel J. Hirro