PSA: Cordillera employment highest in PH in 2025

BAGUIO CITY — The labor force in the mountainous Cordillera was reduced by 10,000 workers last year in the retail and mining sectors due to an economic growth slowdown in 2025, according to the latest labor force survey results which were presented at a forum on Thursday (May 21).

The survey reveals a labor force participation rate of 832,000 (63.8 percent) in 2025, which was a drop from 842,000 (65 percent) in 2024, said Aldrin Federico Bahit Jr, the region’s chief statistician of the Philippine Statistics Authority. The labor participation rate is the proportion of workers in the economy who have landed a job or are actively pursuing one. 

But compared to the rest of the country, “the Cordillera had the highest employment rate among all regions in 2025 with 97.3 percent (810,000 workers) followed by Davao region with 97.1 percent and Cagayan Valley with 96.9 percent,” Bahit reported. 

READ: Unemployment rate jumps to pandemic-era high of 5.8%

Consequently, this indigenous Filipino-dominated region also had the lowest unemployment rate of 2.7 percent in 2025 throughout the country, or a 2,000 increase in jobless Cordillerans that elevated the number of unemployed here to 23,000 last year from 21,000 in 2024, he said. 

Bahit also reported that “the number of Cordillera underemployed or those who were employed but have had the desire to secure additional work hours or who sought additional jobs was estimated at 95,000 (11.7 percent) in 2025 (which) was slightly lower than the 106,000 underemployed persons (12.9 percent) posted in 2024.”

This means that 12 in every 100 individuals with jobs or who operate their own businesses in the mountain region were underemployed, he explained. 

READ: Sara Duterte blames Marcos admin for rising debt, unemployment

Bahit said the labor survey results match the 2025 growth performance in the Cordillera, which is composed of the summer capital and the food-producing provinces of Ifugao, Apayao, Kalinga, Abra, Benguet and Mountain Province. The region’s gross regional domestic product of 4.4 percent (equivalent to P394.96 billion worth of goods and services generated in 2025) was slower than its 4.9 percent growth (P378.44 billion) in 2024.

Last year’s GRDP show contractions or negative growths for construction (-1.6 percent) and mining (-2.5 percent) which were reflected in 2025 by the decrease of about 3,900 in mining sector employment, and by the reduction of 8,000 managers and 5,000 manual laborers and other “elementary occupations,” when fewer construction projects were undertaken in 2025, said PSA Cordillera director Villafe Alibuyog. 

Bahit said farm workers increased to 307,000 in 2025 up from 306,000 in 2024 and were quickly deployed to private mountainside gardens that grow salad vegetables. Benguet gardens supply 80 percent of the beans, cabbages, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and potatoes consumed daily by Manila and other Luzon communities. 

The workforce hike was attributed to the economic performance of Cordillera agriculture which sped up to 4.3 percent in 2025 from 1.1 percent in 2024. 

The education sector in the region hired 2,100 more teachers and other employees for “primary or elementary education for children with special needs, pre-primary preschool education for children without special needs, and higher education,” Bahit said. 

The largest employment drop was in the retail sector, marked by a reduction of 7,200 workers in 2025.

Bahit said slow tourism explains why Baguio City reflected a low labor force participation rate of 55.2 percent in 2025 down from 66 percent in 2024 (or a reduction of 10,200 workers), with retrenchments at hotels and restaurants last year. 

The survey also showed slight but relevant changes in work behavior that revealed how some enterprises were impacted by the slow economy in 2025. Unpaid family workers in private businesses like farms shouldered more work from 9.8 percent (80,000) in 2024, to 10.1 percent (82, 000) last year. The number of the region’s self employed “who have no employees” grew from 32.7 percent (268,000) in 2024 to  33.3 percent (269,000) apparently because of troubled enterprises. 

Some of the workers in family businesses appeared to have joined the formal salaried workforce which increased from 53.7 percent (441,000) in 2024 to 54.7 percent (443, 000) in 2025, Bahit told the Inquirer. /das