The Labor Force Survey (LFS) provides statistics on levels and trends of employment, unemployment and underemployment of the country and regions. It is used for the projection of future human resource and helps in the assessment of the potential human resource available for economic development.

Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Ilocos Region is 60.8% The result for the April 2020 LFS showed that the region’s Labor Force

Participation Rate of persons whose age is 15 years old and over increased by 0.1 percentage points from 3,552 thousands in April 2019 to 3,554 thousands in April 2020. 

The national LFPR decreased by 5.7 percentage points, that is from 61.4 percent in April 2019 to 55.7 percent in April 2020. However, the Ilocos Region had an LFPR (60.8%) higher than the national rate of 55.7 percent.

Employment rate in Ilocos Region decreased by 16.4%

The percentage of employed persons in Ilocos Region decreased by 16.4 percentage points from 94.1 percent in April 2019 to 77.7 percent in April 2020.

Unemployment Rate increased to 22.3%

The unemployment rate of the region increased by 16.4 percentage points, from 5.9 percent in April 2019 to 22.3 percent in April 2020.

Underemployment Rate raised at 20.7%

The underemployment rate of the region increased by 0.2 percentage points from 20.5 percent in April 2019 to 20.7 percent in April 2020.

More males employed in Ilocos Region

Among the 1,677 thousand employed persons in Ilocos Region in April 2020, 61.5 percent were males while 38.5 percent were females.

Figure 2 shows that there was a decrease in the percentage of employed males in the region by 0.8 percentage points. The decrease in males corresponds to the increase in the percentage of employed females in the region by 0.8 percentage point.

Majority of the employed persons have junior high school education

In terms of educational attainment of employed persons, 48.7 percent of employed persons have junior high school education of which 39.1 percent graduated while 9.6 percent did not graduate in April 2020.

Employed persons with college education in April 2020 posted a 24.3 percent of the total employed persons in the region. The 16.8 percent earned a bachelor’s degree while 7.5 percent did not finish college.

Elementary level of education in April 2020 had a share of 19.6 percent of the employed persons of which 13.2 percent graduated and 6.4 percent did not.

The percentage of employed persons in Ilocos Region with no education completed was 0.2 percent. This is lower than the 0.5 percent recorded in April 2019.

Services industry employed the most with 54.1%

By industry, the Services industry employed the most with 54.1 percent, followed by Agriculture with 30.8 percent and Industry with 15.1 percent.

The services sector shows a decrease in employment by 3.8 percentage points. From the 54.1 percent employed individual in services sector, wholesale and retail trade had the highest percentage with 19.3% followed by public administration & defense (8.1%) and transportation & storage (7.4%).

The Agriculture Sector increased by 9.0 percentage points from April 2019 to April 2020. In connection with the 30.8 percent of employed in Agriculture Sector, there were 29.5 percent employed in agriculture, hunting & forestry followed by fishing & aquaculture (1.3%).

Employed persons in the Industry Sector decreased by 5.2 percentage points from 20.3 percent in April 2019 to 15.1 percent in April 2020. From this, construction and manufacturing had the highest employment with 8.4 percent and 5.0 percent respectively.

Most employed persons were engaged in elementary occupations

Most employed persons were engaged in elementary occupations with 31.5 percent in April 2020 followed by service & sales workers (17.9%) and skilled agricultural forestry & fishery workers (16.9%).

The figure 5 shows a decrease in the employment in elementary occupations (by 0.2%), and service &sales workers (by 0.4%). On the contrary, there was an increase in the employment in skilled agricultural, forestry & fishery workers by 4.6 percent.

Among the major occupation group, Employed in armed forces occupations has the least percentage at 0.1.

Wage salary workers contributed 58.1% of the total employment

Most of the employed persons of Ilocos Region in April 2020 were wage and salary workers at 58.1 percent. A substantial decrease by 6.0 percentage points from the 64.1 percent in April 2019.

Self-employed persons without any paid employee marked 29.6 percent. There was an increase of 4.5 percentage points in April 2020.

About 39.9% did not work in April 2020

From the 1.1 percent employed person who did not work in April 2019, there was an increase of 38.8 percentage points in April 2020.

Employed persons who worked for 40 Hours & over shows a significant decrease of 58.8 percentage points from the 61.5 percent in April 2019 to 22.7 percent in April 2020.