
“IBON re-estimates of labor force survey figures amount to over four million unemployed Filipinos with an unemployment rate of over 9% and the officially reported 7.5 million underemployed with an underemployment rate of 18.3% in 2016. This indicates that there are still a considerable 11.5 million who are without work or still looking for more work because of the poor quality of jobs. These are also apart from an increasing number of discouraged workers who stopped looking for work who likely constitute a large number of the 1.2-1.3 million Filipinos dropping out of the labor force. This continuing massive joblessness underpins the economy’s as well as the workers’ continued reliance on overseas work.