AT the beginning of this month, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released the unemployment data for November 2024, and the news was encouraging. The unemployment rate had fallen to 3.2 percent from 3.6 percent a year earlier and 3.9 percent in October, and the underemployment rate had declined to 10.8 percent, the second-lowest monthly rate of the entire year. Government officials were quick to congratulate themselves on the validation of current policies these incremental improvements represented, but when one steps back and looks at the Philippine employment situation as part of a bigger picture, the word that comes to mind most readily is "stagnation."

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