EV registers 96.1% employment rate in October 2018

By PSA-8
December 19, 2018

TACLOBAN CITY – Eastern Visayas registered 96.1% Employment Rate (ER) in October 2018, ranking sixth among the regions with high employment rates in the country, and at par with Zamboanga Peninsula. This figure is slightly lower than the 96.3% ER recorded in October 2017. Employment rate is the proportion of employed persons to total labor force.

Out of the estimated 3.2 million population 15 years old and over in October 2018, about 1.8 million were economically active or in the labor force. This number translates to a Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of 58.4%. This figure is 1.8 percentage points lower compared with the 60.2% LFPR in the same period a year ago. Among the regions, Eastern Visayas recorded the fourth lowest LFPR.

The underemployed persons or those employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours was estimated at 265 thousand. This is equal to an underemployment rate of 14.9%, 5.7 percentage points lower than the 20.6% recorded in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, about 72 thousand persons in the labor force were unemployed. This translates to an unemployment rate of 3.9%, slightly higher than the 3.7% unemployment rate recorded in the same period in 2017. Considered unemployed persons are persons in the labor force who are reported as without work; and currently available for work; and seeking work or not seeking work due to the following reasons: a) belief that no work is available, or b) awaiting results of previous job application, or c) because of temporary illness or disability, or d) weather, or e) waiting for rehire or job call.

Data were based on the preliminary estimates released by the Philippine Statistics Authority from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) conducted in October2018.