The unemployment rate dropped to 3.2 percent in November 2024 from 3.9 percent in October due to seasonal demand for jobs in the holiday season, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Wednesday.

This is equivalent to 1.66 jobless Filipinos in November 2024, which is lower compared to 1.97 in October.

There was also a decline in underemployment rate to 10.8 percent from 12.6 percent in October.

PSA Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said: '' There was also an increase in accommodation and food service activities. Here, the number of employed individuals rose by 528,000, including an additional 310,000 in restaurants and mobile service activities and 97,000 in short-term accommodation services.”

He said that year-on-year, there was an increase in employees categorized as wage and salary workers.

“The number of employed workers classified as wage and salary workers…increased by 1.11 million year-on-year. Of this number, 950,000 are from private establishments. We have an increase of 231,000 employees in private households,” he said.

“We have a decrease in employees in the agricultural and fishing sectors because of the typhoons, but we had an increase in manufacturing and accommodation services, including the additional wage and salary workers,” he added.

The employment rate in November was estimated at 96.8 percent, higher than October’s 96.1 percent.

In terms of magnitude, this corresponds to 49.54 million employed persons in November compared to 48.16 in October.

Subsectors that saw the highest growth were manufacturing (784,000), accommodation and food service activities (528,000); human health and social work activities (303,000), other service activities (239,000); and transportation and storage (190,000). Jaspearl Tan/DMS