The country’s unemployment and underemployment rates rose to 3.9% and 13.4%, respectively, in March 2025.
Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Labor Force Survey for March 2025, the Philippines’ unemployment rate registered at 3.9% from 3.8% in February.
In terms of magnitude, the number of unemployed individuals for the month was 1.93 million. The total posted was slightly lower compared to February 2025’s 1.94 million unemployed Filipinos.
Meanwhile, the underemployment rate for March increased to 13.4%, from 10.1% in the previous month.
In contrast, the country’s employment rate in March 2025 was estimated at 96.1%, a slight decrease compared to 96.2% in February 2025. In numerical value, the number of employed individuals recorded was 48.02 million–a significant decline from February 2025, which recorded 49.15 million individuals.
By broad industry group, the services sector remained at the top, with a share of 62.0% of employed persons in March. This was followed by the agriculture and industry sections at 20.1% and 17.9% respectively.
Meanwhile, the top five sub-sectors with an annual increase in the number of employed persons in March 2025 are:
- Education (210,000)
- Administrative and support service activities (145,000)
- Fishing and aquaculture (138,000)
- Arts, entertainment, and recreation (91,000); and
- Human health and social work activities (51,000)
In contrast, the sub-sectors with the highest annual decreases in the number of employed persons include: agriculture and forestry, public administration and defense, compulsory social security, and others.
Wage and salary workers remained to have the largest population in terms of employed persons, with 63.4% in March. This was followed by self-employed persons without paid employees at 27.9% and unpaid family workers at 6.6%.
Among the wage and salary workers, those employed in private establishments had the highest rate at 78.1%. This was followed by those in the government or government-controlled corporations at 14.7%.
