Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto has emphasized that the Philippines’ labor force remains strong with all key indicators above pre-pandemic levels and that the decelerating inflation rate is expected to stimulate jobs in the wholesale and retail trade sectors through increased discretionary spending.

The wholesale and retail trade sectors were the biggest employment drivers in July 2024, adding 1.07 million more workers to the labor force.

This was followed by the agriculture and forestry sub-sector, which added 936,000 more workers.

“The continuous decline in the country’s inflation rate will benefit businesses, especially those in the wholesale and retail sectors, as this means our people will have more money to spend on non-essential items. Meanwhile, the increase in jobs in the agriculture sector signals its recovery from the effects of El Niño,” the Finance Chief explained.

“Lahat ng ito ay magandang balita para sa patuloy na pag-unlad ng ekonomiya at sa ating layuning maiangat ang walong milyong Pilipino mula sa kahirapan bago matapos ang termino ng Pangulo,” he added.

These gains in employment drove the country’s unemployment rate to drop to 4.7% in July 2024 from 4.9% recorded in the same month last year. This is significantly lower than the pre-pandemic level of 5.1% in 2019.

Moreover, the quality of jobs continues to improve as the underemployment rate also fell to 12.1% in July 2024 from 15.9% in July of the previous year.

This is way better than the 13.8% underemployment rate recorded before the pandemic.

Wage and salary workers continue to make up the largest share of employed persons in the country at 63.8% (30.4 million out of 47.7 million) in July 2024.

This indicates an expanding middle class as more and more Filipinos are engaged in formal and stable jobs.

Among the wage and salary workers, private establishments employ 78.3% (23.8 million), while the public sector share was just 14.3% (4.4 million).

“This means that for every six jobs in the private sector, there is only one job in government. This shows that private businesses are the backbone of our labor market,” the Finance Chief explained.

“This highlights the importance of creating a very supportive environment for the private sector to thrive so we can create more jobs, increase incomes, grow the economy further, and reduce poverty. And this is exactly what we are doing,” he added.

The latest easing and support from the monetary policy will further encourage growth and investment that translate to more jobs for ordinary Filipinos.

The government is also accelerating the implementation of investment-enhancing economic liberalization laws and the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Code, including pushing for the immediate passage of the amendments to the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act.

This is expected to sustain the Philippines’ attractiveness to investments and bring in more employment opportunities for qualified workers through the influx of international companies and the expansion of export-oriented industries.

The government is also ramping up the roll-out of the Build Better More program which will not only offer more employment opportunities for construction workers, but will also open the doors for more highly technical jobs such as engineering, architecture, and consultancy that will nurture Filipino expertise and talent.

In tandem, Secretary Recto emphasized that the government will continue to prioritize empowering the Filipino workforce through substantial investments in human capital development to enhance Filipinos’ preparedness for high-quality employment opportunities.