ILOILO City – Nearly one in every three employed Western Visayans wanted additional work or longer working hours, exposing a deepening job-quality problem even as more people entered the regional labor force.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Region 6 showed that 665,000 workers were underemployed in April, pushing the region’s underemployment rate to 31.8 percent – a sharp increase from 17.3 percent in January 2026 and 24.3 percent in April 2025.
Underemployed persons are those who are already working but want additional hours in their current jobs, an additional job, or a new job offering longer working hours.
The April figure means almost one in three of Western Visayas’ estimated 2.09 million employed people were looking for more work.
PSA defines the labor force as persons aged 15 and older who are either employed or unemployed. Overseas workers are excluded from the estimation of the country’s working population because their economic characteristics are not collected as part of the domestic labor force statistics.
Employed persons include those who performed work for at least one hour during the reference period for pay or profit, as well as those who had jobs or businesses but were temporarily not at work.
Underemployed persons, meanwhile, are employed individuals who “expressed the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have an additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours during the reference week.”
Unemployed persons generally refer to those aged 15 and older who are without work, currently available for work and seeking employment.
Those classified as not in the labor force are persons aged 15 and older who are neither employed nor unemployed or are not actively looking for work.
According to the PSA, the labor market also faced rising unemployment.
Western Visayas posted a 6.3 percent unemployment rate in April, equivalent to around 141,000 people who were without work, available for employment and actively looking for jobs.
The unemployment rate was higher than the 5.5 percent recorded in January 2026 and substantially above the 4.0 percent registered in April 2025.
Employment likewise weakened year-on-year.
The region’s employment rate stood at 93.7 percent in April, representing about 2.09 million employed individuals. This was down from 94.5 percent in January and 96.0 percent in April 2025.
In absolute terms, the number of employed Western Visayans increased slightly from 2.08 million in January but remained well below the 2.20 million recorded in April last year.
The deterioration in employment indicators came despite a quarter-on-quarter increase in the number of Western Visayans participating in the labor market.
PSA-6 reported a labor force participation rate of 63.4 percent in April, equivalent to an estimated 2.23 million people in the labor force out of the region’s 3.52 million population aged 15 years and older.
This was up from 62.9 percent, or 2.21 million people, in January 2026 – an increase of about 25,000 individuals.
However, compared with April 2025, labor force participation declined substantially. The rate stood at 66.0 percent, or about 2.29 million people, a year earlier, meaning the region’s labor force shrank by approximately 53,000 people year-on-year.
The figures indicate that while more Western Visayans entered or returned to the labor market between January and April, the economy struggled to provide enough jobs – particularly jobs offering sufficient working hours./PN
