By Roderick T. dela Cruz

THE number of people out of work was higher by 180,000 in January than that a year earlier, taking the jobless rate to 7.7 percent from 7.4, officials said yesterday.

A total of 2.855 million were out of work in January compared with 2.675 million a year ago, government data showed.

Over the same period, the number of people employed rose 1.7 percent to 34.258 million, up from 33.693 million.

The National Statistics Office said the unemployment rate rose because the population grew faster than the growth in the number of jobs.

A series of high-profile factory closures also contributed to the increase in unemployment.

Labor officials said at least 39,000 Filipinos had lost their jobs since October last year as factories and companies laid off workers amid the deepening global financial crisis.

Manila and the surround-ing provinces, which together account for more than half the country?s economic output, reported an unemployment rate of 14.0 percent.

Of those who were employed, 36.3 percent only had part-time work. Some 3.8 million of the 6.2 million underemployed worked less than 40 hours a week.

The economy grew 4.6 percent in the whole of 2008 against 7.2 percent in 2007. About 51.2 percent of those employed worked in the services sector, while agricultural workers made up 34.6 percent of the total. Only 14.2 percent worked in the industrial sector.

Unskilled workers registered the largest group, at 31.9 percent, of the total employed in January 2009. Farmers, forestry workers and fishermen were the second largest group, accounting for 17.3 percent of the total.

The statistics office said 52.3 percent of the employed people were wage and salary workers, while 35.4 percent were self-employed. Another 12.3 percent were unpaid family workers.

The government said more males were unemployed than females. By age group, many of the unemployed were between 15 and 24 years old.

By education, about 32.7 percent of the unemployed were high school graduates, while 22.2 percent were college undergraduates. Only 18.3 percent of the unemployed had completed a college education.