2.58 M Filipinos are jobless

Lack of jobs still haunts the Filipino nation.

The country’s unemployment rate in March rose to 5%, as the number of jobless Filipinos jumped to 2.58 million amid the oil crisis, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

Preliminary results from the March 2026 Labor Force Survey released on Wednesday showed the jobless rate stood at 5% in March, much higher than the 3.9% in the same month a year ago but slightly better than the 5.1% in February.

“The unemployment rate stood at 5% which means 50 out of 1,000 individuals in the labor force did not have jobs or any business in March 2026,” National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Mapa said in a briefing.

PSA data showed the number of unemployed Filipinos stood at 2.58 million in March, up by 645,000 from 1.93 million a year earlier, but fell by 84,000 from the 2.66 million recorded in February.

Mapa said the oil crisis has put pressure on the labor market, particularly in some sectors such as fishing and aquaculture. He said they are closely monitoring whether the oil price shocks will spill over to other sectors.

“We want to check whether the external shock on fuel and energy will spread to the other sub-sectors… It is not yet conclusive if the effects will spread. We have to wait for the April round to see if it will spread,” he said.

For the first three months, the unemployment rate averaged 5.3%, higher than the 4% average a year ago.