MANILA -- The Philippines' unemployment rate climbed in July, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Friday. 

The jobless rate was at 4.7 percent, which was higher than the 3.1 percent unemployment rate in June. This translated to 2.38 million Filipinos who were jobless in July.  There were 1.62 million unemployed in June. 

Underemployment, meanwhile, stayed at 12.1 percent. This means 5.78 million Filipino workers were looking for extra hours of work or searching for extra jobs to augment their income.

This number was at 6.08 million in June.

There were 50.7 million workers in the labor force in July, down from the 51.9 million seen in June.

Broken down by industry, the following sectors added the most jobs on a yearly basis:

-Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (1.7 million);
-Agriculture and forestry (936,000);
-Accommodation and food service activities (512,000);
-Public administration and defense, compulsory social security (385,000);
-Construction (171,000)

Meanwhile, the manufacturing (154,000) and professional, scientific, and technical activities (100,000) posted the highest job losses year-on-year.

The services sector had the highest number of jobs, making up 60.8 percent of the total employment numbers, followed by agriculture at 21.2 percent and industry at 18 percent.

National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said he youth unemployment was among the key reasons for the hike in the jobless rate in July.

Out of the 2.38 million unemployed Filipinos, 1.02 million or 43 percent of them are ages 15-24, the official noted.

“Kung titingnan natin yung nakaraang mga quarters, nung Abril 2024, ang youth unemployment natin, in terms of numbers, ito ay nasa 688,000 lamang, at nag-represent siya ng  33.7 percent doon sa total unemployed,” Mapa said.

“Doon sa July 2023 naman, ito ay 850,000 out of 2.29M. Nag-represent  lang siya ng 37.1 percent,” he added.

(If we take a look at the past quarters, in April 2024, youth unemployment was at 688,000, which represented 33.7 percent of the total unemployed. In July 2023, last year, this was at 850,000 out of 2.29 million. This represented only 37 percent of total unemployed.)

“Siguro nakita namin, na July kasi, ito yung nag-graduate na yung mga nasa kolehiyo, ‘di kaya yung sa K to 12, pumasok sila sa labor market at yung iba sa kanila ay hindi nakahanap ng trabaho,” he said.

(We’ve seen that it’s July, some young people have graduated from college or K to 12, they entered the labor market but not all of them were able to find jobs.)

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said it was prioritizing efforts to attract investments in sectors that generate high-quality jobs.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Baliscan said government was scaling up social and physical infrastructure to boost Filipinos’ employment prospects and implementing reskilling and upskilling programs to improve job security and adaptability.