Farm job volatility seen as structural, not just result of seasonality

By Vonn Andrei E. Villamiel

PERSISTENT month-to-month employment swings in agriculture point to structural weaknesses beyond seasonal factors, analysts said, after the industry lost more than half a million jobs in November even as overall employment expanded.

Employment in agriculture fell 5.7% month on month in November, equivalent to 594,000 jobs lost, according to results of the Labor Force Survey issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Total employment rose 1.34% from October to 49.27 million.

On a year-on-year basis, agricultural employment declined 0.71% to 9.85 million in November, shedding 69,000 jobs.

Former Agriculture Undersecretary Fermin D. Adriano said agriculture jobs typically taper off in November due to the close of the rice harvest, a time when vegetable and orchard farmers also cannot harvest because this is still peak typhoon season,” he told BusinessWorld via Viber.

According to the PSA, agriculture employment typically peaks in the May to June and September to October periods, coinciding with the main planting and harvest cycles, before falling sharply because of typhoons.

During the offseasons, agricultural workers are absorbed by other industries, like services.

In December, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies reported that such off-season employment tends to be informal and low value.

“The continuing decline of agricultural employment, without a commensurate rise in high-productivity industry jobs, suggests a risk of premature de-industrialization, where labor shifts to low-value services rather than high-value manufacturing,” the study found.

Mr. Adriano said another key issue is whether other industries are generating enough jobs to absorb workers displaced from agriculture.

“The main concern should be employment in manufacturing…” he said. “If you don’t see increases in employment in those sectors as we near the peak Christmas season, then we really do have a serious employment problem.”

Mr. Adriano added that manufacturing and services are generally preferred by workers because of higher and more stable wages, but weak investment inflows have limited their capacity to generate jobs.

Meanwhile, some analysts said the scale and recurrence of employment losses in agriculture suggest structural problems.

Jose Enrique A. Africa, executive director of think tank IBON Foundation, said the decline in agricultural employment on both a monthly and year-on-year basis indicates more than routine seasonal adjustments.

“The structural weakness is even clearer if we look at how agricultural employment has fallen steeply in recent years, dropping by 627,000 from an annual average of 10.7 million in 2021 to just 10 million in the first eleven months of 2025,” he told BusinessWorld via Viber.

Mr. Africa also pointed to extreme volatility in agricultural employment over the past five years, with year-on-year changes ranging from losses of as much as 2.3 million jobs in August 2024 to gains of up to 1.9 million in July 2022.

Month-on-month swings are even more severe due to seasonal factors, with employment falling by as much as 3 million in January 2024 and increasing by as much as 2.2 million in August 2023.

Mr. Africa said the huge swings in agricultural employment reflect structural joblessness, rather than a voluntary shift to better jobs in other industries, including the services sector, which is also plagued by pervasive informality.

To arrest this trend, Mr. Africa said interventions must focus on stabilizing farm incomes and protecting farmers from market distortions.

“Farm incomes have to be stabilized with price support and procurement mechanisms, curbing monopolies in input and trading markets, and cheap public credit and insurance,” he said.

Jayson H. Cainglet, executive director of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, said government commitment is critical to rebuilding confidence in farming.

“Reversing this trend requires the farming community to clearly see that government is on their side: increasing public investment in agriculture and protecting the market against unfair competition,” he told BusinessWorld via Viber.

Mr. Cainglet added that ensuring farmgate prices are consistently 20% to 30% above production costs is essential to attract and retain farmers. He said inadequate subsidies, unimpeded imports, and reduced tariffs are hurting agricultural workers.

“Farmers are ultimately discouraged when, after months of hard work and investment, they are wiped out by cheaper imports and collapsing farmgate prices,” he said.

Former Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said the industry’s vulnerability to extreme weather events must also be addressed to increase employment stability.

“The agriculture sector is badly impacted by extreme weather events like strong typhoons and flooding. We need to enhance resilience of the agriculture sector, including upskilling our agriculture labor,” he said.

Mr. Africa said substantial public investment must be poured into climate-resilient irrigation, post-harvest facilities, and marketing infrastructure. He said industrialization must also be realized to increase overall productivity and generate viable employment outside farms.

“Industrialization is critical for productive rural non-farm employment in agro-processing, food systems, and rural manufacturing, as well as for a more modern high-technology, high-productivity, and job-creating economy overall,” he said.