PSA: Unemployed Filipinos down
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00:00 Jobs, jobs and more jobs. The ideal prescription and ultimate cure all to the economic woes of the country,
00:06 which an average of 1.66 million Filipinos each month found and got paid for from November 2022 to November last year,
00:16 or a total of roughly 50 million Filipinos, filling out just about the same number of job vacancies or work opportunities.
00:24 And one of the country's leading economic managers prescribes expanding the digital economy to draw even more job hunters
00:32 and put more reforms in place and to liberalize the economy to attract even more investments from abroad.
00:39 Our Naomi Tiburcio tells us more.
00:42 The number of unemployed Filipinos hit its lowest level in close to two decades.
00:49 This is what the Philippine Statistics Authority announced in its latest Labor Force Survey for November 2023.
00:55 This is equivalent to 1.83 million unemployed Filipinos, over 300,000 less compared to November 2022.
01:03 The number of employed Filipinos also increased to nearly 50 million Filipinos.
01:07 Agriculture, construction, transportation, fishing, administrative and support activities are the five major industries that recorded an increase in employment.
01:17 We can see that, and this is not just this month of November, it's really the fourth quarter because of the holidays.
01:29 We have a lot of activities.
01:31 So we saw that the number of employed persons, particularly self-employed, increased, without employees.
01:40 Meanwhile, underemployment has increased slightly.
01:42 National statistician Undersecretary Mapa explained this has to do with a boost in the number of self-employed Filipinos, such as freelancers.
01:50 They are also self-employed here, so the number of hours of work is not that high.
01:57 So we can see here where we have underemployed.
02:02 So that's typical.
02:04 The number of employed increased, and not all of them could be absorbed in terms of the full employment.
02:12 So the number of underemployed increased this November.
02:18 A slight drop in the number of Filipinos actively looking for a job was recorded from 51.88 million to 51.47 million.
02:26 To shore up the number of employed Filipinos, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said it's time to expand the digital economy.
02:33 He said the liberalization reforms are also important to encourage investment in the country, especially in digital infrastructure, to gin up the availability of high-quality jobs for Filipinos.
02:45 Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno is confident unemployment will further improve with the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy of the Marquez Administration on Employment and Investments.
02:57 The Secretary says he is expecting a 4 to 5 percent improvement in the unemployment rate by 2028.
03:04 Dayomi Timursha for The Nation.