Jobless rate decreasing — DOLE

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Tuesday noted that the number of jobless Filipinos decreased from 47.3 percent in May 2023 to 4.1 percent in May 2024.

“The drop is really tremendous—2.2 million April 2024 to May 2024 and that speaks a lot for us sa Department of Labor and Employment,” Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma said in Palace briefing.

“It reflects that some of the efforts on the interventions being done by the Department of Labor and Employment through the collaboration and participation of the private sector, ay medyo (slightly) bearing fruit now and this gives us encouragement,” Laguesma added.

He said, in April, there were about 600,000 new employment added.

And with better jobs coming in, Laguesma assured that Filipino workers are ready.

“I mentioned earlier the Trabaho Para sa Bayan Plan,” he added, noting that it includes strategies and approaches to be able to make workers “not simply locally competitive but globally competitive.”

“So we continue to provide upskilling, retooling, and the present of lifelong learning for our workers.”

As the Philippine economy continues to grow at six to seven percent this year, Laguesma said he expects that it will be accompanied “by quite a lot of jobs.”

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Monday reported that the number of jobless Filipinos went down to 2.11 million in May this year from 2.17 million in May 2023.

Data released by the PSA showed that the unemployment rate in May was at 4.1 percent, down from 4.3 percent in the same month last year.