The number of Filipinos without a job declined in August 2025, pushing the national unemployment rate down to 3.9%, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday, October 8.
National Statistician and PSA Chief Claire Dennis Mapa reported that the number of Filipinos aged 15 and above who are unemployed dropped to 2.03 million in August 2025, a significant decrease from the 2.59 million recorded just one month earlier in July.
This means that the number of jobless individuals decreased by 560,000. This is also lower than the 2.07 million unemployed Filipinos in the same period in 2024.
Despite the overall drop in unemployment, five sub-sectors saw the largest decreases in employed persons between July and August 2025:
Human health and social work activities – 105,000
Mining and quarrying – 103,000
Professional, scientific and technical activities – 102,000
Manufacturing – 70,000
Education – 54,000
Underemployment. The underemployment rate for August 2025 was at 10.7%, showing a slight decrease from the rates of 14.8% in July 2025 and 11.2% in August 2024, according to the statistics agency.
For August 2025, 5.38 million Filipinos-out of a total employment base of 50.10 million-expressed a desire for more extensive work, whether through increased hours in their current position, taking on an additional job, or finding a new job with longer working hours.
Employment rate. The country’s employment rate reached 96.1% in August 2025, marking an improvement over the 96.0% recorded in August 2024 and a significant increase from 94.7% in July 2025.
This translated to an employed population of 50.10 million Filipinos that month, up from 49.15 million a year earlier and 46.05 million in July 2025.
The services sector continues to dominate the labor market, accounting for the largest share of total employment at 61.5%.
This is followed by the agriculture sector at 20.4% and the Industry sector at 18.1%.
Compared to August 2024, the top five sub-sectors that registered the highest increases in employment were:
Construction – 540,000
Fishing and Aquaculture – 448,000
Administrative and Support Service Activities – 307,000
Agriculture and Forestry – 300,000
Other Service Activities – 239,000
Employment class by worker. Wage and salary workers accounted for the largest share of the employed persons at 64.4% in August 2025.
This group includes workers in private establishments, with 78.0% of all wage workers and those employed by the government, with 14.1% of all wage workers.
The remaining employed individuals were categorized as self-employed without paid employees with 27%, unpaid family workers with 7% and employers in their own family-operated business with 1.6%.
Total number of people in the labor force. The labor force participation rate, which includes both employed and unemployed individuals aged 15 and above, rose to 65.1% in August 2025.
This figure is higher than the 64.8% posted in August 2024 and the 60.7% recorded in July 2025.
The estimated labor force participation translates to 52.13 million Filipinos who were part of the labor force during the month.