Unemployment steady at 4.4% in December — PSA

The country’s unemployment rate held steady at the end of 2025, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday.

The PSA said the unemployment rate in December 2025 remained essentially unchanged from November’s 4.4 percent estimate, translating to 2.26 million individuals.

The agency noted, however, that the total number of unemployed individuals rose marginally by around 10,000 from November. The 4.4 percent December figure marks a steep increase from the 3.1 percent recorded in the same month in 2024.

Labor force participation

The PSA said the labor force participation rate (LFPR), with the labor force consisting of individuals aged 15 years and over who are either employed or unemployed, landed at 64.4 percent in December, a modest uptick of 0.4 percentage points from the previous month.

Underemployment, defined by the PSA as “employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with longer hours of work,” declined to 8.0 percent in December from the previous month’s 10.4 percent.

The PSA said this translates to approximately 3.93 million of the 49.43 million total employed individuals who expressed the desire for additional sources of income.

2025 unemployment rate average

Based on PSA preliminary data, the 2025 unemployment rate averaged 4.2 percent for the full year, with December’s figure settling slightly above the annual average and 0.4 percentage points higher than the 3.8 percent annual average in 2024.

The LFPR, meanwhile, averaged 64.1 percent for the year, slightly lower than the 64.4 percent average in 2024, indicating a yearly decline in labor force participation. Underemployment held steady at 11.9 percent annually in both 2024 and 2025.

By class of worker, wage and salary workers comprised the majority of the workforce in December 2025 at 64.2 percent. This was followed by self-employed workers without paid employees (27.4 percent), unpaid family workers (6.9 percent), and employers in their own family-operated farm or business (1.5 percent).

Construction sector led in job losses

By sector, agriculture gained the most employed individuals with roughly 572,000, while the construction sector led in job losses, shedding approximately 550,000 positions — possibly due to the contraction in public infrastructure investment.