BusinessWorld E-paper
October 8, 2026
THE PHILIPPINES’ unemployment rate rose to 5.3% in August from 3.9% a year earlier, leaving 2.77 million Filipinos without jobs as the labor market struggled to absorb a growing working-age population, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Wednesday.
Preliminary data on the August 2026 Labor Force Survey showed the number of unemployed Filipinos increased by about 740,000 from 2.03 million in August 2025, while the number of employed people fell to 49.79 million in August from 50.1 million a year ago.
