Making the grade

UNEMPLOYMENT and underemployment continue to be perennial problems in our country. According to the January 2014 Labor Force Survey (LFS) the unemployment rate rose to 7.5 percent in January from 7.1 percent a year ago. This means that 2.969 million Filipinos were unemployed. Most of them (48.2 percent) are 15-24 years old, followed by those 25-34 years old (29.9 percent).

About 64 percent of the unemployed were males. One-fifth (19.8 percent) of them were college graduates, easily dispelling the traditional notion that a college education will guarantee a job, a worrying fact indeed to the thousands more graduating or who have graduated from college this year.