*DJ Philippine April Jobless Rate 12.2% Vs 10.6% Jan

MANILA (Dow Jones)--The Philippine unemployment rate rose to 12.2% in April from 10.6% in January, according to data issued by the statistics office Monday. The rise may be due to an influx of new graduates in the job market who haven't yet found work rather than a laying off of workers by companies.

Meantime, April's jobless rate was lower than the 13.9% in the same month last year.

DJ Philippine April Jobless -3: Employment Up Across Sectors

The unemployment rate usually peaks in April as new graduates would have just joined the labor force.

In that month this year, the Philippine labor force rose to 34.64 million from 33.68 million in January but was down from 35.05 million in April 2002, the statistics office reported in its quarterly labor force survey.

Labor force refers to people aged 15 years and older and are able to contribute to the production of goods and services in the country.

Employment rose across all the three major economic sectors of agriculture, industry and services.

Employment in agriculture was up 1.2% to 11.2 million in April from 11 million in the same period a year ago. Employment in industry increased by 0.8%, while employment in services rose 0.4%.

The Philippine economy has been hit by a slowdown in global demand, which has hurt exports to the country's biggest markets, the U.S. and Japan. Consequently gross domestic product in the first three months of the year shrank 0.5% on quarter. Still, first-quarter GDP managed to rise 4.5% on year thanks to strong domestic consumption. The government expects GDP to expand by 4.2%-5.2% for the whole of 2003.

-By Ditas Lopez, Dow Jones Newswires; ditas.lopez@dowjones.com

-Edited by Ryan Woo

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