THE Philippine unemployment rate plunged to 5.8 percent in January, equivalent to some 2.469 million Filipinos, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Friday.
This was lower than the 6.6 percent unemployment rate in January last year.
Malacanang welcomed the results of the latest round of the Labor Force Survey, saying this was the lowest rate recorded for all such surveys conducted in January over the past ten years.
The PSA cited that the decline in unemployment is relatively broad-based across geography, age groups, gender, and education.
"Among the regions, Central Luzon (7.5 percent), CALABARZON (7.5 percent), and NCR (6.9 percent) had unemployment rates significantly higher than the national figure," it said.
Among the unemployed persons in January, 63.4 percent were males. Of the total unemployed, the age group 15 to 24 years comprised 48.2 percent, while the age group 25 to 34, 30.9 percent. By educational attainment, 19.7 percent of the unemployed were college graduates, 14.5 percent were college undergraduates, and 32.9 percent were high school graduates
The survey also showed that compared to January 2015, total employment two months ago went up by 2 percent to 39.2 million, with an estimated 752,000 additional workers.
The services sector, which grew by 5.6 percent, remained the top employment contributor, while the industry sector posted an 8.4 percent growth in employment.
"The PSA notes that this increase can be attributed to strong employment gains in the construction subsector, partly a result of increased public infrastructure spending during the last quarter of 2015," Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.
The Palace official also noted that the other indicators of quality employment improved significantly -- the figures for wage and salaried employment, full-time employment, and mean hours of work all increased.
The number of remunerative and stable wage and salary workers increased by 2.7 million in January, while the share of full-time employment to employment significantly increased to 67.4 percent from 61.6 percent in January last year.
"This latest piece of good news points toward our continued upward trajectory along Daang Matuwid," Lacierda said. (SDR/Sunnex)