The results of the October 2017 LFS round indicated decent work gains in terms of generating quality employment. The underemployment rate eased considerably by 2.1 percentage points (ppts) from 18.0% to 15.9%, which has been a record low since October 2006. Moreover, vulnerable employment rate, as measured by share of self-employed and unpaid family workers to total employment, decreased to 33.9% to 36.4% year-on-year.

However, despite notable decent work gains, there was a slight employment contraction (at 95.0% from 95.3%) and marginal increase in unemployment rate (at 5.0% from 4.7%), mainly driven by employment losses in agriculture. There was also a decline in the labor force participation rate (at 62.1% from 63.6%) primarily due to more young persons staying in school as a result of the K to 12 implementation and females pulling out of the labor force to assume household duties.

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Title: October 2017 Labor Force Survey (LFS) Results
Researcher: Employment Research Division