The country’s unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent in January from 7.4 percent three months earlier, with the economy unable to create enough jobs in the agriculture and services sector that could offset losses in the industrial sector, the government said yesterday.
The National Statistics Office said 2.84 million people were jobless in January out of an estimated workforce of 35.224 million.
That was up from 2.62 million people who were unemployed out of a workforce of 35.496 million in October.
The labor force survey is conducted at the beginning of every quarter.
In January last year, the unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent.
Of the 32.384 million employed in January this year, around 15.7 million — or nearly half of those employed — were working in the services sector. Some 11.8 million, or 36 percent, were working in the agriculture sector, and the rest in the industrial sector, the statistics office said.
Around 47 percent of the 2.8 million jobless had been looking for work for fewer than four weeks. More than half of those unemployed didn’t look for work.
The statistics office cited belief that work wasn’t available as among the reasons unemployed persons hadn’t been looking for work.
The government aims to reduce unemployment as it projects an increase in the gross domestic product to 5.7 percent-6.3 percent percent this year from 5.1 percent last year.
Meanwhile, the National Statistical Coordination board released yesterday its 2004 estimated of food and poverty thresholds which showed that Filipino families needed R5,464 per month that year to keep out of poverty.
It showed that Juan de la Cruz, who managed to make both ends meet in 2003, had to earn 5.1 percent more income in 2004 so as not to be considered poor. This translated to the minimum annual income of R13,113 for 2004 of which R8,734 was intended for sustaining food needs and the balance of R4,379 for other basic needs.
Which this threshold, a family of five had to have a regular source of income amounting to R65,656 for the year or R5,464 per month to meet their essential needed.
In uban areas, the poverty threshold was placed at R15,001 in 2004. About 5.8 percent over the 2003 threshold of R14,178. Poverty threshold in rural areas went up slightly faster by 7.3 percent from R11,589 in 2003 to R12,431 in 2004.
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