The Philippine Statistics Authority’s latest Labor Force Survey shows that the number of Filipinos without jobs or livelihoods rose to over two million in April 2025.

National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa reported that unemployed persons, ages 15 and above, increased slightly to 2.06 million in the fourth month of the year from 1.93 million in March 2025.

PSA chief said a year-on-year, jobless individuals climbed by 23,000 from 2.04 million in April 2024.

As a percentage of 50.74 million participants in the labor force —who are actively looking for labor opportunities during the period — the number of unemployed persons translated to an unemployment rate of 4.1%, up from 3.9% in March and 4% in April last year.

The increase in the number of those joining the labor force was the factor… when labor force participation rises, not everyone is absorbed to become employed persons.

Labor force participants grew by 340,000 from April 2024 and by about 780,000 from March 2025’s 49.96 million.

Of the 340,000 year-on-year growth in labor force participation, the PSA chief said about 317,000 became employed while 23,000 were not absorbed.

“Despite the slight uptick in unemployment, the Philippine labor market continues to demonstrate resilience amid global headwinds. We remain on track to meet our target unemployment range of 4.4% to 4.7% set under the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028,” said Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) officer-in-charge and Undersecretary for Policy and Planning Rosemarie Edillon.

Despite the slight increase in joblessness in April, the number of employed persons grew by around 650,000 to 48.67 million from 48.02 million in March 2025.

Compared to April 2024, the number of employed expanded by about 317,000 from 48.35 million year-on-year, according to the PSA chief.

As a percentage of 50.74 million persons in the labor market, the employment rate stood at 95.9%, down from 96.1% in March this year and 96% in April 2024.

The results of the latest LFS showed that the Services continued to be the top sector in terms of the number of employed persons with a share of 61.9% of the total employed persons in April 2025.

The Agriculture and Industry sectors, meanwhile, accounted for 20.6% and 17.5%, respectively of the total number of individuals with jobs and livelihoods during the period.

In April, the top sectors which posted the highest annual increase in the number of employed persons were the following:

• Administrative and support service activities – 394,000
• Public administration and defense; compulsory social security – 262,000
• Agriculture and forestry – 260,000
• Construction – 121,000
• Education – 66,000

On the other hand, the sectors which posted the highest annual decrease in employed individuals were as follows:

• Manufacturing – 410,000
• Other service activities – 183,000
• Accommodation and food service activities – 141,000
• Arts, entertainment and recreation – 63,000
• Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles – 57,000

Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma, for his part, described the country’s labor market as showing signs of “remarkable resilience.”

“This stability mirrors the robust employment levels we saw in April of last year and remains very close to the high of 95.7% recorded in January 2025, a clear sign that a consistently high proportion of Filipinos are employed and contributing to our economy,” said Laguesma.

“There are significant employment gains in key sectors such as administrative and support service activities, public administration and defense, agriculture and forestry, construction, and education. These gains truly underscore the dynamic growth happening in diverse industries, creating even more promising opportunities for our dedicated and growing workforce,” said the Labor chief.

Data from the PSA survey showed that wage and salary workers remain to account for the largest share of employed persons with 63.2% of the total in April 2025.

This was followed by self-employed persons without any paid employee at 28% and unpaid family workers at 6.8%.

Employers in their own family-operated farm or business had the lowest share of 2%.

Among wage and salary workers, those employed in private establishments remained to have the highest share at 78.1% of the wage and salary workers or 49.3% of the total number of employed persons.

Those employed in government or government-controlled corporations followed with a share of 15% of the wage and salary workers or 9.5% of the total number of employed persons during the period.