MANILA (XFN-ASIA) - The unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent as of end-January up from 7.4 percent at end-October 2005, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said in a statement.
It added that the number of jobless Filipinos swelled by about 200,000 over the three-month period to 2.8 million.
The unemployment rate in January last year stood at 11.3 percent, with a total of 4.03 million Filipinos jobless.
A total of 32.4 million people were employed as of end-January this year, compared to 31.6 million last year.
The country's total labor force, comprising both employed and unemployed, totaled 35.2 million at end-Jan, down from 35.5 million last October.
The NSO said there was an increase in the number of employed persons in both the farm and service sectors, while employment in the industry sector fell in all sub-sectors except the electricity, gas and water group. It did not elaborate.
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