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Release Date :
Reference Number :
2018-201

 

 

 

The preliminary results of the Annual Labor and Employment Estimates for 2018 based on the average of the four (4) LFS rounds (January, April, July and October) reported an annual labor force participation rate of 60.9 percent out of 71.3 million population  15 years old and over.  This is equivalent to about 43.5 million economically active population comprising of either employed or unemployed persons.  The annual employment rate in 2018 was estimated at 94.7 percent; annual unemployment rate was 5.3 percent; and annual underemployment rate was 16.4 percent.  In 2017 final result, the annual labor force participation rate was 61.2 percent, the annual employment rate was 94.3 percent, annual unemployment rate was 5.7 percent and annual underemployment rate was 16.1 percent.

The total employed persons in 2018 was approximately 41.2 million (Table 1).  Employed persons were grouped into three broad sectors, namely, agriculture, industry and services sector.  Workers in the services sector composed the largest proportion of the employed persons.  These workers made up 56.6 percent of the total employed in 2018 (Table 1).  Among them, those engaged in the wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles accounted the largest proportion (19.4%) of workers (Table 1).  In 2017, workers in services sector accounted for 56.3 percent of the total employed, with those engaged in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles made up the largest proportion (19.6%) of workers.

Workers in the agriculture sector was the second largest group making up  24.3 percent of the total employed in 2018, while workers in the industry sector made up the smallest group registering 19.1 percent of the total employed.  In 2017, workers in agriculture accounted for 25.4 percent of the total employed, while workers in industry sector, 18.3 percent (Table 1).

Among the occupation groups, workers in the elementary occupations remained the largest group making up 26.9 percent of the total employed in 2018 and 26.1 percent in 2017 (Table 1).  Managers composed the second largest occupation group (16.0%), followed by service and sales workers (15.0%), and skilled agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers (12.4%).

Employed persons fall into any of these classes of workers: (1) wage and salary workers, (2) self-employed workers without any paid employee, (3) employers in own family-operated farm or business, and (4) unpaid family workers.  Wage and salary workers are those who work for private households, private establishments, government and government-controlled corporations, and those who work with pay in own family-operated farm or business.  In 2018, the wage and salary workers composed of 63.8 percent of the total employed, of which workers in private establishments accounted the largest share (50.1%), followed by workers in government and government-controlled corporations (8.7%), workers in private households (4.7%) and workers with pay in own family-operated farm or business (0.3%).  The second largest class of workers were the self-employed without any paid employee making up 26.9 percent of the total employed in 2018.  The unpaid family workers accounted for 5.6 percent, while the employer in own family-operated farm or business, 3.6 percent (Table 1).

Employed persons are classified as either full-time workers or part-time workers.  Full-time workers refer to those who worked for 40 hours or more in a week, while those who worked for less than 40 hours were considered part-time workers.  Of the total employed persons in 2018, 68.4 percent were full-time workers, while 30.8 percent were part-time workers.  Those who did not report for work during the reference week comprised 0.9 percent (Table 1).  In 2017, full-time workers composed 65.2 percent of the total employed while part-time workers, 33.8 percent. In 2018, workers worked 42.1 hours per week, on average, while in 2017, the mean hours worked per week was 41.4.

By definition, employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours are considered underemployed.  In 2018, the underemployed person was estimated at 6.7 million persons corresponding to an underemployment rate of 16.4 percent (Tables 2 and 4).

Underemployed persons who work for less than 40 hours in a week are called visibly underemployed persons.  They accounted for 53.2 percent of the total underemployed persons in 2018 and 56.0 percent in 2017 (Table 2).  By comparison, the underemployed persons who worked for 40 hours or more in a week made up 45.6 percent.  By sector, 45.5 percent of the underemployed persons worked in the services sector, while 34.6 percent were in the agriculture sector.  Those in the industry sector accounted for 19.9 percent (Table 2).

In 2018, the unemployed persons numbered about 2.3 million resulting to an annual unemployment rate of 5.3 percent (Tables 3 and 4). Among the regions, Ilocos Region (6.8%), NCR and CALABARZON (6.6%) were the regions with the highest unemployment rates (Table 4).

Among the unemployed persons in 2018, 75.2 percent belonged to age group 15 to 34 years old.  Those in the age group 15 to 24 years composed 44.6 percent of the unemployed while those in the age group 25 to 34 years, 30.6 percent in 2018 (Table 3).  There were more unemployed males (63.2%) than unemployed females (36.8%).  By educational attainment, 21.0 percent of the unemployed were college graduates, 15.9 percent were college undergraduates, and 29.0 percent have completed junior high school (Table 3).  Graduates of junior high school include those high school graduates in the old curriculum.

 

 

(SGD.) LISA GRACE S. BERSALES, Ph.D.
Undersecretary
National Statistician and Civil Registrar General

 

 

Technical Notes

 

The annual labor and employment statistics presented in this release for 2018 used the average estimates of labor and employment indicators from the four Labor Force Survey (LFS) rounds conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on a quarterly basis.  The use of the average estimates of the four-quarter rounds of the LFS data was based on PSA Board Resolution No. 01, Series of 2017-151 - Approving and Adopting the Official Methodology for Generating Annual Labor and Employment Estimates, approved on the 14th day of February 2017.

For 2018, the methodology for annual labor and employment estimates uses the following formula to estimate employment, unemployment, underemployment and labor force participation rates:  Zi= ( ∑j Xij / ∑j Ykj ) x 100

where:

Zi  =  annual estimate for the rate of i where i refers to employment,  unemployment, underemployment and labor force participation
  
Xij  =  estimate for the population of i for the jth round of LFS where

        i  refers to employed, unemployed, underemployed and labor force, and

j  refers to the four rounds of LFS: January, April, July and October

Ykj  =  estimate for the population of k for the jth round of LFS where

k  refers to labor force, employed persons and persons 15 years old and over,  and

         j  refers to the four rounds of LFS: January, April, July and October

 

The official methodology was deemed the most appropriate among methodologies reviewed and evaluated for the following reasons:  a) it captures the labor and employment situation in all four quarters of the year; b) the generation or cross tabulations (e.g., by class of workers, by occupation group) is more feasible for producer of estimates; c) it is the closest method for estimating the number of persons who work four times for the entire year; and d) these estimates are being used by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and its attached agencies and regional offices for planning/formulation of intervention programs.

 

Source:   Income and Employment Statistics Division
               Social Sector Statistics Service
               Philippine Statistics Authority
               Quezon City, Philippines

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