Bicol Hit By High Rate of Underemployment in July

Bicol has the highest underemployment rate among the regions in the country, according to the latest survey conducted by the National Statistics Office. About 33.5 per cent of workers or employees 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.

The region has an estimated 3.771 million population aged 15 years and over based on the results of the July 2012 labor force survey. About 2.4 million of which are in the labor force, equivalent to a 63.1 per cent labor force participation rate. It is down by 0.7 percentage point compared to the rate a year ago. The labor force participation rate is the proportion of those in the labor force to the population aged 15 years old and over.

The employment rate for the same age group was estimated at 94.4% or inversely, an unemployment rate of 5.6%. That was an 0.2 percentage point increase in unemployment as compared to the same reference period of the previous year.

Among the regions, the National Capital Region (NCR) recorded the highest unemployment rate of 9.9 percent while Cagayan Valley (Region2) posted the lowest at 3.2 percent. Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) recorded the lowest underemployment rate at 12.3 per cent.

*26

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *