The March 2026 Labor Force Survey shows headline gains in jobs—but these mask a deeper crisis of informal, precarious, and unstable work, research group IBON said. The situation is made even more fragile by rising global oil prices and their ripple effects on the domestic economy.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that employment rose by 1 million, from 48.0 million to 49.1 million, while the labor force expanded by 1.7 million from 50 million to 51.6 million, between March 2025 to 2026. Yet unemployment worsened from 3.9% to 5%, swelling the ranks of jobless Filipinos from 1.9 million to 2.6 million. IBON said that these figures show a labor market increasingly unable to generate enough decent, stable, and productive work.
The group stressed that informality remains widespread. Visibly informal workers increased by 177,000 to nearly 20 million with self-employment, private households, and family-operated farms or businesses still accounting for a large 41% of total employment. Self-employment rose by 265,000 and unpaid family workers by 174,000 to reach 13.7 million and 3.4 million, respectively.
Wage and salary workers grew by 809,000 to 31.3 million, driven mainly by private establishments which added 923,000 to reach 24.7 million. However, IBON estimates that some 16.3 million or two-thirds (66%) of this is actually in informal establishments.
This would bring the total number of informal workers up to some 36.3 million or almost three-fourths (74%) of total employment. This points to millions of Filipinos remaining trapped in irregular work arrangements, having uncertain hours, and earning fragile incomes.
Looking at month-on-month changes shows how much of the available jobs growth is insecure and unstable. Full-time employment rose by 933,000 year-on-year in March, but fell by 348,000 month-on-month or between February and March. Reported underemployment eased from 13.4% to 12.3%, equivalent to a decline from 6.4 million to 6.0 million, but this may just be from workers discouraged from looking for additional work by such poor prospects in the jobs market.
Across sectors, employment trends show volatility rather than sustained productive expansion. Gains were posted in transportation and storage (507,000 increase), administrative and support services (458,000), construction (175,000), and mining and quarrying (147,000). But these were undermined by steep losses in fishing and aquaculture which shed 189,000 jobs year-on-year and a huge 420,000 loss month-on-month, especially amid rising fuel costs that the government has done very little to mitigate.
Manufacturing employment, in particular, continued to contract and lost 149,000 year-on-year and 217,000 month-on-month. Even agriculture, forestry, and construction continue to experience sharp swings rather than stable growth.
IBON said that these sectoral swings reveal the weakness of the country’s economic structure, especially amid global oil price shocks. The sharp contraction in fishing and aquaculture reflects how fuel-intensive livelihoods are immediately hit by rising fuel costs which result in less trips, falling incomes, and failing jobs. Similar pressures are building up across farming, transportation, and other oil-dependent sectors where rising fuel prices increase production and operating costs while squeezing already thin margins.
As higher oil prices feed into transport, food, and other basic goods and services, the burden is ultimately passed on to households whose purchasing power is already weakened by persistently high prices and low income. IBON warned that this will further dampen domestic demand, prompting businesses to cut production and reduce hiring, potentially worsening job insecurity across the economy.
The data underscore an economy without stable foundations, IBON stressed. Agriculture and manufacturing are critical for broad-based and sustainable growth but continue to fluctuate and deteriorate, while services mainly absorb displaced workers in insecure and low-quality employment.
Government continues to highlight headline employment figures while ignoring the deeper structural crisis beneath them—persistent informal, unstable, and low-quality work, weak domestic production, and vulnerability to external shocks such as oil price spikes. IBON underscored that strengthening agriculture and manufacturing, reducing import dependence, and creating secure, quality employment, are urgent to overcome the cycle of precarious livelihoods end economic vulnerability.###