2.26 million Filipinos unemployed in December 2025

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February 6, 2026 | 11:24am

MANILA, Philippines — There were 2.26 million people without jobs as of December 2025, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Friday, February 6. 

This translates to an unemployment rate of 4.4% for December 2025 — the same as the previous month. 

While the unemployment rate was retained month-on-month, there is a noticeable increase year-on-year. 

December 2024 had an unemployment rate of 3.1%, or 1.63 million people without work at the same time last year, according to the PSA. 

Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate was at 64.4% in December 2025, translating to 49.43 million people ages 15 and over with work. 

The underemployment rate, which measures workers who feel the need to have more jobs or work more hours, stood at 10.9% in December 2025. 

This means that 3.93 million of the 49.43 million employed persons are underemployed. 

Filipinos worked an average of 41.2 hours per week in December 2025. 

Broken down per industry, most of the employed persons as of December 2025 belonged to the services sector, comprising 62.4% of the total employment pie. It is followed by the agriculture sector (20.7%) and the industry sector (16.9%). 

The following sub-sectors had the highest annual increases in employed people: 

• Administrative and support service activities (Up by 385,000)
• Accommodation and food service activities (Up by 280,000)
• Education (Up by 241,000)
• Public administration and defense; compulsory social security (Up by 83,000)
• Electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply (Up by 48,000)

Meanwhile, the following had the largest annual decreases when compared to the same time in 2024: 

• Construction (Down by 550,000)
• Transportation and storage (Down by 258,000)
• Fishing and aquaculture (Down by 258,000)
• Manufacturing (Down by 255,000)
• Agriculture and forestry (Down by 167,000)