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Jean Mangaluz - Philstar.com
March 6, 2025 | 11:26am
Job seekers line up at a job fair inside a mall in Manila on Feb. 7, 2025.
The STAR / Edd Gumban
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Thursday, March 6, that the country's employment rate in January 2025 stood at 95.7%, showing a decline following the holiday season rush.
The employment rate from October to December 2024 consistently remained above 96%, with December reaching 96.9% and October at 96.1%. However, the drop in employment following the holiday season is expected when compared to historical data.
The PSA reported that the January 2025 employment rate translates to 48.49 million employed individuals.
On a year-on-year basis, employment improved from 95.5% in January 2024 to 95.7% in January 2025.
The country’s unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in January 2025, up from 3.9% in October 2024, before the holiday season peak in November and December. This translates to 2.16 million jobless Filipinos in January 2025.
Underemployment also increased, reaching 13.3% in January 2025, compared to 12.6% in October, 10.8% in November and 10.9% in December. This means 6.47 million Filipinos were seeking additional work hours or another job.
Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) stood at 63.9% in January 2025, representing the proportion of working-age Filipinos who are either employed or actively looking for work.
The PSA also said that Filipino laborers spent a total of 40.4 hours working per week.
By industry
For broad industry groups, the PSA said the services sector employed the most number of people. A total of 61.6% of the country’s workforce in January 2025 was in the services sector.
Meanwhile, 21.1% of the country’s workers were from the agriculture sector and 17.2% was from the industry sector.
The following subsectors recorded the highest increase of workers for January 2025:
- Agriculture and forestry: Up by 883,000
- Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles: Up by 850,000
- Accommodation and food service activities: Up by 533,000
- Transportation and storage: Up by 141,000
- Administrative and support service activities: Up by 136,000
Several sectors also reported a drop in the number of workers for January 2025:
- Manufacturing: Down by 209,000
- Professional, scientific and technical activities: Down by 58,000
- Arts, entertainment and recreation: Down by 29,000
- Construction: Down by 11,000
- Information and communication : Down by 9,000
The PSA said that wage workers also have the largest share of employed persons in January 2025 at 63.0%, followed by self-employed people without any employees at 28.2% and unpaid family workers at 6.6%.
Lastly, employers in family-operated farms and businesses were at 2.2%.
