Soccsksargen employment rate slightly up in 2018

GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- The number of employed persons in Region 12 (Soccsksargen) slightly increased in 2018 as the region's industries and businesses remained resilient despite the unstable inflation rate, an official said.

Matahari Manulon, Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 12 director, said Wednesday the region posted an employment rate of 96.1 percent last year, improving from 96 percent in 2017.

The region’s unemployment rate last year stood at 3.9 percent, down from 4 percent in 2017, Manulon said.

He said the employment rate increased as the area's employable population of 15 years old and above expanded to 3.15 million last year from the previous year’s 3.08 million.

"The region's employment rate was the third-highest in the country in the last two years and consistently higher than the national average," Manulon said in a report.

Region 11 (Davao region) posted the highest employment rate of 97 percent in 2018 followed by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with 96.3 percent. The national average was at 94.7 percent.

In terms of underemployment rate, Manulon said the region improved to 17 percent in 2018 from the previous year’s 17.9 percent.

PSA defines the underemployed as “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.”

However, he said the area's labor force participation rate, the proportion of the population 15 years old and above who contribute to the production of goods and services, dropped to 61.7 percent last year from 62.2 in 2017.

He said such figure was based on the preliminary results of the annual labor and employment estimates for 2018 on the average of the four labor force survey rounds conducted in January, April, July, and October.

About 43.5 million persons in the country were in the labor force last year, with 1.9 million, or roughly 4.5 percent, from Soccsksargen, he said.

The services sector posted the most number of employed persons at 56.6 percent, followed by agriculture at 24.3 percent, and industry at 19.1 percent. (PNA)