Marcos Jr.: PH low jobless rate a buffer vs recession
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ 8 percent inflation rate in November was of no consequence, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he’s confident that the country would not enter a recession because unemployment has fallen to a record low of 4.5 percent.
“Kaya kahit papaano ay malakas ang loob natin hindi tayo magkakaroon ng recession dito sa Pilipinas dahil masyadong mababa ang unemployment rate,” he said in a video message.
(That is why I am confident that we will not have any recession here in the Philippines because our unemployment rate is too low.)
“Kung maaalala ninyo sa pagsimula namin dito sa administrasyong ito ay pinagusapan na namin ay trabaho talaga ang aming uunahin. Kaya’t ‘yan ang nakikita ngayon natin na nangyayari. Ipagpatuloy lang natin iyan,” Marcos added.
(If you remember, at the start of my administration, we are already discussing prioritizing jobs. So that is what we’re seeing happening now. So we will just continue with that.)
Marcos said that his administration is looking at ways to mitigate the effects of rising prices on the average Filipino family.
“At asahan ninyo na lahat ng paraaan na maari nating gawin ay gagawin natin para pababain ang inflation rate at gawing mas mabagal man lang ang pagtaas ng presyo,” he said.
(You can expect that we are doing all we can to lower the inflation rate and slow down, at the least, the increase in prices.)
Preliminary results of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) latest labor force survey released Wednesday indicated that the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent in October – lower than the recorded 7.4 percent unemployment rate in October 2021 and 5 percent in September this year.
The PSA survey likewise showed that the number of unemployed Filipinos decreased to 2.24 million in October from 3.5 million a year ago, with 1.26 million securing employment this year.
The PSA survey further indicated that the employment rate in October rose to 95.5 percent from 95 percent in the previous month. The October employment rate increase is the highest since January 2020.
