THE country’s recent employment gains may have allowed the Philippine economy to grow above 6 percent in the last quarter of 2023, according to a local economist.
On the sidelines of a recent economic briefing, University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) economist Victor A. Abola said growth may have reached 6.2 percent in the October to December 2023 period.
Abola said the employment rate of 95.8 percent in October 2023 and the 96.4 percent recorded in November 2023 are significant in boosting economic growth.
“We should not be surprised with [a growth of] 6 percent. We should not look down also on 6 percent because people are [complaining] ‘we’re only growing at 6 percent’; before [we would say] ‘baka maka-6 percent pa tayo’ [we may even hit 6 percent],” Abola told reporters.
Abola also noted that in November 2023, the unemployment rate of 3.6 percent and 1.8 million jobless Filipinos are new record lows since 2005 when the government adopted the International Labor Organization (ILO) standard.
In April 2005, the new unemployment definition, based on ILO standards, was adopted per National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) Resolution Number 15 dated October 20, 2004. The NSCB is one of four agencies that now make up the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Based on this, the unemployed include all persons who are 15 years and over as of their last birthday and are reported as without work and currently available for work and seeking work or without work and currently available for work but not seeking work due to various reasons.
These reasons include tired/believed no work available; awaiting results of previous job application; temporary illness/disability; bad weather; and waiting for rehire/job recall.
Abola also said this is consistent with the latest poverty data which showed the country’s poverty rate in 2020 was down to 16.4 percent compared to 80 percent in 2021.
“I’m expecting a rebound in consumer spending based on the type of spending that we will see until later,” Abola earlier said. It may be noted that consumption accounts for 70 percent of the country’s GDP.
Last week, HSBC economist for Asean Aris Dacanay said there are now 3 million more Filipinos working in households. This represents 10 percent of those who are now working and contributing to the economy.
Dacanay said this is the “labor boom” that the country is experiencing right now, thanks in part to the Philippines’s demographic dividend. The country, he said, has a young population with an average age of 25 years old and they are helping boost economic growth.
He said the labor boom that the country is currently experiencing is “very impressive,” and something that is only happening in the Philippines and not the other countries in the Asean.