MANILA, Philippines – The number of unemployed Filipinos actively in the labor force grew to 2.15 million in January 2024, more than the 1.6 million in December 2023 as job opportunities generated during the Christmas season waned.

Of the 48.09 million Filipinos in the labor force, the unemployment rate reached 4.5%, more than the 3.6% in December 2023, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority on Friday, March 8.

However, this relative drop between months shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise, given the seasonality of certain jobs during the holidays.

National Statistician Dennis Mapa said this could be partly explained by the additional but temporary economic activities generated during the holidays. For instance, unpaid family workers who have been helping out in bazaars and stores might now have opted back out of the labor force to return to school or household duties.

“‘Yung seasonal activities natin noong fourth quarter – some of them, na-retain naman dahil tumaas ‘yung salary and wages – but of course, ganoon palagi, may mga nawawala kaya tumaas din ‘yung ating underemployment rate,” Maps said on Friday.

(Our seasonal activities in the fourth quarter – some of them which we were able to retain since the salary and wages category went up – of course, that’s how it always is, some disappear, which is why our underemployment rate rose.)

The rise in the number of unemployed persons in January 2024 comes after the unemployment rate hit a near two-decade low in December 2023.

At the same time, labor force participation fell to 61.1% in January 2024, lower than the 66.6% rate in December 2023. This translated to about a 1.8 million drop in the number of Filipinos in the labor force. Of these, 1.5 million Filipinos returned to schooling or household duties, according to Mapa.

Mapa also said that most of the shifts in the labor force came from those who are in the “self-employed without employees” and “unpaid family workers” categories, whose numbers went down by 1.48 million and 960,000 quarter-on-quarter respectively.

However, despite this drop, there were also gains in other parts of the labor force. The number of working Filipinos in the “salaries and wages” category went up by 640,000. This is good news as this class of workers is often used as a quick indicator for job quality.

“May mga class of workers na may pagtaas, at may mga class of workers na bumaba. Pero in terms of number, talagang nakita naman natin na bumawas ang kabuuan ng mga employed persons,” Mapa said.

(Some class of workers went up, some went down. But in terms of number, we can really see that the number of employed persons went down as a whole.) – Rappler.com