MANILA, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine underemployment rate fell to its lowest in over a decade, indicating the improvement of the quality of work nationwide, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said Wednesday.

Based on the October round of the Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), underemployment rate dropped to 13.3 percent in October 2018 from 15.9 percent in October 2017.

The NEDA said this is equivalent to 1.1 million less underemployed workers from last year's 6.6 million. "This is the lowest underemployment rate recorded for all October rounds since 2006 at 20.3 percent," NEDA said in a statement.

"We attribute this to expanding employment opportunities and the approval of nominal increases in regional wages supported by labor productivity improvements," Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said.

"However, of the total youth population, 19.9 percent is neither in employment nor in education in 2018," the NEDA said.

On the other hand, PSA data showed that unemployment rate or the number of jobless Filipinos for October 2018 slightly inched up to 5.1 percent, or equivalent to 2.2 million unemployed persons, compared to last year.