WV unemployment drops to 6.3% in July

Unemployment rate of Western Visayas declined to 6.3% in July from 13.7% recorded last April according to Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)-Aklan.

The current figure translates to around 208, 674 jobless persons, or a decrease of about a half compared to April’s unemployed data of 417, 319 persons.

In July 2019, the unemployment rate in the region was estimated at 5.8%, which is equivalent 185, 567 persons.

Unemployment refers to all persons 15 years and over without work, looking for work, or currently available for work but not looking for it due to reasons such as tired, believe no work available, awaiting results of previous job application, temporary illness/disability, bad weather, waiting for rehire/job recall, and community quarantine.

Meanwhile, underemployment rate clocked in at 10.4% (or 344, 478 persons) in July from 10.9% (332, 027 persons) in April.

Underemployment refers to employed persons who expressed 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 during the reference week.

On the other hand, the employment rate of the region increased to 93.7% in July from 86.3% in April.

This is equivalent to 3.1 million persons employed persons, or an increase of 18.1 percent compared to 2.6 million persons in April 2020.

The labor force participation rate or the proportion of the total labor force to the total household 15 years old and over was estimated at 60.8 percent, which is equivalent to 3.3 million persons.

This is higher compared to April’s LFPR which is 56.1% or about 3.0 million individuals.

Engr. Antonet Catubuan, PSA-Aklan head, said that the agency will again conduct this month another round of Labor Force Survey to a total of 387 sample households in the province.

“We, highly, encourage all respondents of selected households to give truthful and accurate information to data collectors, so that we can generate results that are reliable and reflective of the current situation,” Mrs. Catubuan said.

She assured the respondents that the information being gathered from this survey will be held strictly confidential as provided for by law.