Unemployment in the Philippines

Job generation is one of the recurring themes the politicians never fail to mention during their election campaigns. But up to this point, the country is still on the losing side in the global jobs-generation field.


A certain job is being paid to provide a service or to produce and supply a product to others in the economy that they are willing to pay for. The country’s products, goods, and services hoist the economic status of the country.

According to CIA estimates, we rank 67th in the highest unemployment rate in the world. In the figures released by the National Statistics Office, the unemployment rate in the Philippines rose from 7.5% in 2009 to 8% in April, two years ago. This means that the 2.8 million unemployed ones in January leapfrogged to 3.1 million in April. Majority of the employers are cohesive in saying that the unemployment rate is a sign that most companies are struggling due to the economic crisis.


This administration boasts that the economy grew a few points but one has to be critical on this, considering that the rise in percentage doesn’t necessarily mean that it helped create jobs. According to Prof. Leonor Briones of the University of the Philippines in an interview, she said that “there is such a thing as a ‘jobless growth’. The overseas remittances of the workers abroad don’t help in the increase of domestic employment. The money goes to consumption and not necessarily to job creation”, she added.


As of this writing, the country has 17.4% unemployment rate; compare this to the province with the lowest rate of 19.8% - Agusan del Norte. In this part of the Philippines, two out of ten people in the province of Agusan del Norte in the Southern Philippines don’t have jobs.

Add to that rate the dynamics of 1.873% population growth rate and the one million graduates struggling to look for jobs every year; you will get a picture of a great need for job-creation in a country where majority is composed of the youth. In the words of International Labor Organization Country Director for the Philippines Lawrence Jeff Johnson, “It is essential that we have to actually ensure that we can provide decent and productive jobs here at home for young people”.


While it is true that there is a handful of employment facilitation programs being given by the Department of Labor and Employment; this proved to be not enough to generate enough jobs to even out the economic scale.


The DOLE recently announced the existence of the labor and employment plan, the “Philippine Labor and Employment Plan” together with its other plans for employment. But is it already implemented? Is it being lobbied already in the government to our policy actors and implementers?


Dear lawmakers, fulfill your promises. I am calling your attention.






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