Unemployment inched down to 7.0% in 2Q 2023, down 0.1 percentage points from the first quarter of the year, according to data (pdf) released by statistics agency Capmas yesterday. Unemployment was down 0.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year.

REMEMBER- By definition, the official unemployment rate only includes people who are looking for work. The labor force participation rate — which counts everyone aged 15-64 either in work or actively looking for work — recorded 43.0%, unchanged from last quarter and up from 42.6% in the same quarter of 2022.

Unemployment among women dipped significantly: The jobless rate among women dropped 1.9 percentage points q-o-q to 17.3%, while unemployment among men inched up 0.3 percentage points to 4.8%. Unemployment among women is consistently much higher than men.

And slightly fewer young people are out of work: The rate of unemployment among 15-29 year-olds accounted for 61.8% of all jobless people in 2Q 2023, compared to 63% the previous quarter. Capmas doesn’t provide an official rate of youth unemployment.

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