Philippines suffers worst job losses in 15 years

The unemployment rate in October was equivalent to 3.8 million Filipinos in the labour force who were jobless.- Bloomberg

MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN): About 4.5 million Filipinos have lost their jobs this year, with the unemployment rate at 10.4 per cent -- the highest in 15 years, the government reported, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown shuttering thousands of businesses.

But as quarantine restrictions gradually eased and the economy reopened to allow workers to return to their jobs, the jobless rate also eased to 8.7 per cent in October, National Statistician Dennis Mapa told a press conference on Thursday (Dec 3). He cited from the latest preliminary results of the Philippine Statistics Authority's quarterly labour force survey (LFS).