The Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Wednesday that the number of Filipinos without jobs or livelihoods increased in September amid the decline of labor force participants during the period.

National Statistician and PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa reported in a press conference that the number of unemployed persons ages 15 and above grew to 2.26 million from 2.21 million in August.

The number of jobless individuals in September 2023 was lower than in September 2022, when 2.50 million people were seen as unemployed.

With 49.93 million people in the labor force actively seeking jobs, the unemployment rate stood at 4.5 percent.

September 2023 has a higher unemployment rate than August's 4.4 percent, though it was still lower than September of the previous year's 5 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of underemployed persons was reported at 5.11 million out of the total 47.67 million employed individuals, translating to an underemployment rate of 10.7 percent in September 2023.

Just like the number of unemployed individuals for September 2023, the underemployment rate in September 2023 was lower than the reported rate in September 2022 at 15.4 percent and in August 2023 at 11.7 percent.

Underemployed persons are those who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have an additional job to have a new job with longer hours of work.

The percentage of underemployed people working less than 40 hours per week, or the visible underemployment rate, was estimated to be 6.8 percent in September 2022, down from 9.8 percent in September 2022 and 7.5 percent in August 2023.

On the other hand, the number of underemployed people working at least 40 hours per week was recorded at 3.9 percent, lower than the estimated 5.6 percent rate in September 2022 and 4.2 percent in August 2023.