Amid the Marcos regime’s boast of a “healthy economy” and “labor market,” more than one million jobs disappeared in the past 12 months. Alongside this, one million workers said their income was insufficient and have sought additional work.

“The large 1.1 million decrease in employment and similarly large 1 million increase in underemployment underscore the Philippine economy’s continuing inability to create decent paying work,” according to the Ibon Foundation.

According to the latest Philippine Statistics Authority’s published Labor Force Survey, 1.1 million jobs were lost in March this year compared to March 2024. The labor force shrank by 1.2 million, from 51.2 million in March 2024 to 49.96 million in March 2025. The state claims this is due to many individuals returning to school or leaving work to perform household chores.

Ibon Foundation, however, says more Filipinos stop looking for work after searching for so long. The PSA dropped them from the labor force data.

“It is much more likely that the labor force decreased because so many Filipinos could not find work despite their best efforts and just stopped looking for work, becoming discouraged job seekers,” according to the foundation.

“The agriculture sector suffered the worst decline in the number of jobs (610,000) while the manufacturing sector lost 281,000 jobs in the past year,” according to the group. The share of agriculture shrank to the lowest level (8%) while the share of manufacturing also shrank to 17.6%. This is the lowest in the past 70 years.

“Weak job creation is from worsening problems in the agriculture and industrial sectors which are vital sources of sustainable jobs,” according to Ibon.

Jobs are being created, but they are also of poor quality. The number of salaried and wage workers shrank by 1.1 million, mostly from private companies. An estimated 20 million Filipinos are in insecure jobs with low pay. The underemployed grew to 6.44 million, mostly in construction, retail, public administration, and services sectors.

“The rise in underemployment reflects the unresolved jobs crisis where existing jobs pay poorly,” according to Ibon.

Official unemployment statistics only obscure the true number of the unemployed, according to the group. The PSA counts 1.92 million unpaid family workers as “employed” and dropped 2.4 million workers who are no longer motivated to seek work from the labor force count.

Ibon criticized the state’s mantra of “jobs mismatch” or lack of skills as the reason for widespread unemployment. It said that until the fundamental problems in agriculture and industry sectors are resolved, the job crisis in the country will remain and worsen.