The country’s unemployment rate ballooned to 17.7 percent in April, the highest recorded since the 8.4-percent rate in 2005, as the lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) forced the closure of thousands of businesses.
OUT OF WORK Men loiter on a sidewalk near the corner of Maria Orosa Street and T.M. Kalaw Avenue — usually the meeting place of seafarers looking for work and where shops catering to their various job-application needs are found — in Manila on June 5, 2020. The Philippine Statistics Authority announced that day that the country’s unemployment rate reached 17.7 percent in April. PHOTO BY ENRIQUE AGCAOILI