MANILA, Philippines – There are 11.5 million Filipinos who are either jobless or are still looking for additional work because of the poor quality of the jobs they currently have.
This is the insight of re-estimates carried out by think-tank IBON Foundation on official labor survey figures that show over four million jobless Filipinos – an unemployment rate of over 9 percent – and 7.5 million underemployed (underemployment rate of 18.3 percent.)
According to IBON, the 11.5 million-figure does not yet include the rising number of discouraged workers who stopped looking for work and who likely constitute a large number of the 1.2 to 1.3 million Filipinos dropping out of the labor force.
“This continuing massive joblessness underpins the economy’s as well as the workers’ continued reliance on overseas work,” IBON said.
It said that at first glance, it might appear that the quality of work had improved in 2016 as the share of part-time workers in employment was smaller at 32.5 percent and the full-time workers’ share was larger at 66.6 percent.
But IBON’s most recent estimates of the quality of domestic employment showed otherwise because almost two out of three employed or 24.4 million Filipinos were non-regular, agency-hired, informal sector, or unpaid family workers.
This means that these Filipinos are engaged in “low-paying and insecure work with poor or no benefits,” according to IBON.
