Eastern Visayas registers 96.3% employment rate in January 2018

By PSA-8
March 23, 2018

TACLOBAN CITY – Employment rate in Eastern Visayas in January 2018 was estimated at 96.3%, ranking fifth among the regions with high employment rate in the country. This figure is higher than the 93.6% ER recorded in January 2017. Employment rate is the proportion of employed persons to total labor force.

Out of the estimated 3.1 million population 15 years old and over in January 2018, about 1.9 million were economically active or in the labor force. This number translates to a Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of 61.6%. This figure is 5.4 percentage points higher compared with the 56.2% LFPR in the same period a year ago. Among the regions, Eastern Visayas registered the fifth lowest LFPR.

The underemployed persons or those employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours was estimated at 361 thousand. This is equal to an underemployment rate of 19.4%, lower than the 23.2% recorded in the same period last year. The region had the ninth highest underemployment rate in the country.

Meanwhile, about 71 thousand persons in the labor force were unemployed. This translates to an unemployment rate of 3.7%, lower than the 6.4 percent rate recorded in January 2017. Eastern Visayas ranked fifth among the regions with low employment rate.

Data were based on the preliminary estimates released by the Philippine Statistics Authority from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) conducted in January 2018.