LABOR groups on Wednesday said they expect the recent improvements in the country’s labor force indicators will only last until the Christmas season due to lack of a comprehensive employment plan from the government.
TUCP Vice President Luis C. Corral echoed the position of Mata on the “seasonality” of the rise in employment from October to December. “That might be indicative of workers who are already tired, frustrated, discouraged from looking for work and employment in the job market because the quality of job is poor,” Corral said.LAST Wednesday, the Philippine Statistics Authority released its latest Labor Force Survey results, which showed the unemployment rate last October fell back to pre-pandemic levels at 4.5 percent, which translates to 2.24 unemployed workers, from the 7.4 percent in the same period last year.
Despite the said improvements, Mata lamented that said new indicators were only at par with those before the onset of the pandemic in 2020.Likewise, he said the LFS showed about 20 percent or 8.91 of the country’s 49.35 working individuals are “underutilized.”