MANILA - Unemployment in the Philippines jumped more sharply than expected in July to 7.6%, with 2.9 million people out of work, the government said on Tuesday.

The government had previously forecast that only 2.7 million people out of a labor force of 38.4 million would be jobless, the National Statistics Office said in a statement.

The unemployment rate in July was up from 7.5% in April, when the statistics office last released jobless data. It was also higher than the 7.4% recorded in July last year.

Underemployed adults--mainly those working fewer than 40 hours a week--fell to 7.0 million in July, resulting in an underemployment rate of 19.8% compared with 18.9% in April.

No reason was given for the increases, although Labor Secretary Marianito Roque earlier said that the country's unemployment rate was expected to increase in the months of April to August due to the influx of new graduates.

Aside from this, recent official data showed that the Philippine economy continued to take a hit from the global slowdown.

The country's gross domestic product grew 1.5% in the second quarter of 2009, lower than the 4.2% growth recorded in the same quarter last year.

Job losses and reduced work hours were particularly noted in the semiconductor and electronics sectors, which produce over half of the country's exports. Exports slumped 2.8% in July from the previous month.

The NSO said there were 35.5 million employed persons in July 2009. Of the number, more than half were wage and salary workers for private companies and households, as well as government corporations. Over a third were self-employed and the rest were unpaid family workers. With AFP