The Philippines will not run out of qualified workers in services and industry despite a declining population rate, the executive director of the Commission on Population and Development said on Friday.

"What happened in Japan, Singapore which is currently happening in China, I think this will not happen to us because our population continues to grow but the growth is getting smaller," Undersecretary Juan Antonio Perez III said in a radio interview on Friday.

"We think by 2025 even if there is still a pandemic... it will stabilize at around one million additional population every year. If that is the case the national and local government will be able to provide better services needed by the people," he added.

Perez said a significant reduction on the population growth was recorded in the latter part of 2020.

"By 2020 the number of those who use family planning has increased by 400,000, the decrease in the population was seen in December 2020 but I think there is already a decrease in November and October. In December 2020 the number of those who give birth reduced to 115,000; this is much lower to around 50,000," he said.

"Most of the decrease happened at the end of 2020, by then the couples wanted to postpone pregnancy. The number of marriages also decreased in 2020 from 440,000 of 2019 to 240,000 of 2020," he added.

Perez said the recorded decrease in population growth is the fastest since 1986.

"We see that since 2012, 1.7 million were born. It decreased to 1.62 million in 2019 and further went down in 2020. The data shows a decrease of 1.6 to 1.5 million. This is the fastest decrease in pregnancy since 1986.

"In 34 years, this is the fastest decrease on the number of pregnancy, now in 2021 a bigger decrease in population growth is expected," he added. Robina Asido/DMS