Unemployment and under-employment
Meanwhile there are about 2.7M Filipinos that are unemployed which constitutes about 7.4% of the labor force. This is the lowest rate the Philippines enjoys since 1996, before the country suffered from the Asian Financial Crisis. After unemployment rate peaked in 2000, it has been on a steep decline by an average of 8.5% each year through to 2010. Out of this unemployed group of workers, 88% is roughly split between people who at least had a high school or a college education.
A large proportion of college graduates are nursing graduates whose numbers now sum up to about 200,000 according to a report by Philippine Nurses Association. As of 2011, it is estimated that about 7M are underemployed . It went back up after it fell in 2010 at 6.5M. Visibly underemployed people, people working less than 40 hours per week, cover 57% while the rest is made up by Invisible underemployed people, those who work over 40 hours per week but wants more hours.