The National Statistics Office yesterday reported that the January jobless rate improved to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent last year.

The number of jobless persons, however, reached 2.9 million as of January, higher than the October tally of 2.6 million.

Socio-economic secretary Romulo Neri said that industries hired more workers in the past quarter even if there were job losses in the agricultural sector.

He added that the services sector, primarily call centers and the hotel and tourism industries employed more people.

Underemployment, however, continued to remain a problem rising to 21.5 percent of labor force from 21.1 percent last year.

As of January, the number of workers rose to 33.5 million, 4.7 percent higher than the previous year. Employment generation was at 1.52 million for the period, higher than the 754,000 net job creation in 2006.

The Philippines has a total of 36.4 million labor force, out of the 56.145 million individuals aged 15 and above.

In January, the services sector continued as the top contributor to the employment, with a net employment contribution of 1.45 million, a 9.4 percent increase. The industrial sector generated 103,000 jobs, compared to 87,000 employment losses last year.

The agriculture sector, though, lost 38,000 net employment due to typhoon damage, the heavy rains in Mindanao and drier-than-usual weather in Central Luzon.

"Nevertheless, part of the mobile labor force went into services work with comparable skills," Neri noted.

Neri noted sustained signs of easing regional unemployment. The NSO reported that double-digit unemployment rate was recorded only in the National Capital Region (NCR) at 12.7 percent and CALABARZON (Region IV-A) at 10.4 percent.

Neri meanwhile stressed that government must sustain the performances in employment and address bottlenecks to decent work and full employment.

The NSO survey showed that of the 6.8 million underemployed, 4.2 million were working less than 40 hours a week and wanted more work, mainly from manufacturing; public administration and defense, compulsory social security; and, private households with employed persons.

"With improving economic prospects this year and the expected gains from continuing reforms, there are more people encouraged to join the labor force. Thus the government should do well to safeguard these employment created, and continue implementing reforms in the industry sub sectors that still saw job losses," he stressed.