Employment and Labor Force Participation

While employment and underemployment are modest in ARMM, significantly low labor force participation relative to other regions indicates a vast idle workforce. In 2013, underemployment in ARMM stands at 4.6% and underemployment at 12.4% lower than in the rest of Mindanao (5.3% and 22.9%, respectively) and the Philippines (7.1% and 19.3%, respectively). Labor force participation in ARMM, however, was only 56%. This translates to some one million residents of working age who are out of the labor force. Further, over a quarter of employed individuals are unpaid - typically working for family-owned businesses.

Women and youth make up a disproportionate share of the idle workforce - women account for 75% of the population out of the labor force. Though women's participation in the labor force is often lower due to housework and childcare, a non-participant rate of 68% in ARMM is significantly higher than the national and Mindanao averages of 50% and 49% respectively. As with the overall figures, youth unemployment is relatively lower in ARMM. However, youth labor force participation is only 35.1% and almost quarter of all 15-24 years old are neither in education nor in the workforce. Lacking the skills to productively participate in the labor market, out-of-school youth are at high risk of poverty and dissaffection, potentially leading to violence and a reduction in school cohesion.

As a result of limited opportunities, low investment and lagging growth, ARMM has the highest incidence of poverty in the country, more than twice taht of the rest of the country. Three of the ARMM provinces are in the top 20 poorest provinces in the country with Lanao del Sur registering the highest poverty incidence at 73.8 in 2012.

Poverty is also closely linked to displacement, which is one of the defining characteristic of conflict in Mindanao. Even minor spikes in violence can lead to large-scale population displacement. Between 2000 and 2012, over the 40 percent of families in Central Mindanao were displaced at least once, rising to 82 percent in Maguindanao. Displaced populations consistently rate lower than people who have never been displaced on indicators including food consumption, access to basic services and trust in government and other ethnic/religious groups. Furthermore, returned households are almost as vulnerable as those still displaced, as often-lengthy displacement results in losing one or more harvests, missing schooling and in some cases having to sell capital assets to meet basic needs. In this way, displacement drives the inter-generational transmission of poverty.

Poverty and low agricultural productivity contribute to food insecurity and malnutrition. In an assessment of the food security situation in the five provinces of ARMM, 46% of households were found to have a poor (20% of 400,000 people) of borderline (26% or 500,000 people) food consumption score, totaling around 900,000 people. The provinces of Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao are particularly badly affected by food insecurity. Internally Displaced Population are the worst affected, followed by returned and the resettled.