THE number of Filipino workers looking for additional work to augment their income more than doubled in July 2021, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Preliminary results of the Labor Force Survey released on Tuesday by the PSA said there were 3.1 million unemployed and 8.7 million underemployed Filipinos. (See: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/09/07/ranks-of-jobless-filipinos-lower-in-july-but-more-are-underemployed-psa/‚)
The PSA data indicated the number of Filipinos who are “invisibly underemployed” grew 111.2 percent in July 2021—an increase of 2.196 million Filipinos in this category to 4.172 million in July 2021 from 1.976 million in July 2020.
“Invisible. Nagtatrabaho na nang full-time [40 hr/week ang standard], naghahanap pa ng dagdag na trabaho o dagdag na oras ng trabaho [These are Filipinos working full-time (40 hr/week is the standard), looking for additional work or additional hours of working],” former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Emmanuel F. Esguerra explained to BusinessMirror.
Speaking partly in Filipino, he added: “The reason for this is the lack of income. It is possible that they are receiving low pay or doing work that is not matched to their skills. This is the [job-skills mismatch].”
Esguerra said this was expected given the lockdowns and shortened operating hours of many businesses. But the data warrants greater examination, particularly in terms of which sectors gained workers.
Further, Esguerra said the underemployment numbers may be underestimated, as some workers would not be keen to say they want to look for other jobs or sources of income if they know there are no jobs available.
Low base
Meanwhile, the unemployment numbers may also have declined due to the low base last year and the fact that Labor Force Participation declined in July 2021, he said.
Based on the PSA, persons in the Labor Force declined 1.13 million to 44.74 million in July 2021 from 45.87 million in July 2020. This translated to a Labor Force Participation Rate of 59.8 percent in July 2021, lower than the 61.9 percent recorded in July 2020.
“The labor market situation is just an indicator that the economy overall is not doing well. Anything the government does will just be in the nature of temporary relief until it’s able to get a handle on the whole situation,” Esguerra told this newspaper.
Former Labor Undersecretary Rene E. Ofreneo thinks that due to the low and reduced incomes, workers look for other sources of income to support their families.
Due to this, most of the jobs are precarious in nature with low compensation or poor returns, he said. There are also instances when the firms they work for are informal in nature.
“Most of the underemployed, both the visible and invisible, have no employment contracts, if they are wage workers. If they are self-employed like the online vendors and freelancers, they are supposed to be on their own. But there are problem areas in the case of certain industries such as the online delivery industry,” Ofreneo explained to the BusinessMirror.
Household members
Another possible reason, according to De La Salle University economist Maria Ella Oplas is the reduced number of workers in a household.
It is possible that more full-time workers are struggling to make ends meet because someone in their household has lost their job. This means they need to take up the slack in order to provide for their basic needs.
Oplas said the government should work faster and more efficiently against the pandemic by increasing vaccinations and guarding borders to contain the spread of the virus.
“We need to open the economy ASAP to generate employment opportunities. There is no need for invisible underemployment if all members of the household have jobs,” Oplas told BusinessMirror.
Overtime, undertime
Based on PSA data, some 21.375 million Filipinos worked more than 48 hours a week and less than 40 hours a week.
This is composed of 12.116 million Filipinos who worked less than 40 hours a week; 8.991 million who worked more than 48 hours a week; and 267,000 who had jobs but were not at work.
Data showed 63.7 percent of full-time workers who worked over 48 hours a week said they did this to earn more, while 31.6 percent said working over 48 hours a week was required in their job.
“We have tabulated from July 2020 only and so far, this [63.7 percent] is the highest percentage. We did not get in the LFS the reason why he/she wanted more earnings,” PSA Assistant National Statistician Wilma Guillen told BusinessMirror.
Among part-timers who worked less than 40 hours a week, 47.8 percent said this was due to variable working time and the nature of their work; around 9.7 percent said this was due to personal or family reasons; and 8.1 percent said this was due to the lockdown or Covid-19 pandemic.
Oplas expressed concern that working overtime could lead to physical, mental and emotional issues. This could also lead more workers to be more vulnerable to the pandemic.
Economic team
In a joint statement, the President’s economic team said the reduction in the labor force participation rate to 59.8 percent from 65 percent led to net job losses.
They said the net job loss was pegged at 3.4 million from June to July, bringing total employment to 0.8 million below pre-pandemic level. Many of those who left the labor force, the economic team said, cited Covid-19 as their main concern.
The economic team also traced 1.8 million of the month-on-month job loss to the vulnerable agriculture sector, as Typhoon Fabian hit the country around mid-July, destroyed some P700 million worth of output, and affected regions from Northern Luzon down to Western Visayas.
The decrease in output is also reflected in the faster vegetable inflation of 15.7 percent in August 2021 from 5 percent in the previous month.
African swine fever (ASF) also continues to affect hog raisers as quarter-on-quarter hog production fell to 284,000 metric tons (MT), below the Department of Agriculture’s projection of 299,000 MT for the second quarter.
Underemployment
Meanwhile, overall underemployment rate increased from 14.2 percent in June to 20.9 percent in July, mainly due to the increase in the underemployment rate in areas outside NCR from 17.5 in April to 21.8 in July. In contrast, the underemployment rate in NCR declined from 15.5 percent in April to 14.8 percent in July.
“With the recent spike of infections due to the spread of the more contagious Delta variant, the government will continue to adjust its risk management strategy and intensify its health response to save lives and protect the well-being of all Filipinos,” the economic team assured.
The team said this is the primary motivation behind granular lockdowns that were set to start September 8. This strategy will help keep sectors open while preventing the spread of Covid-19.
Granular lockdowns, together with the heightened implementation of our Prevent, Detect, Isolate, Treat, and Reintegrate + Vaccinate (PDITR+V) strategy, will help curb the spread of the virus and bring back jobs lost due to blanket restrictions, they said.