More than 916,000 enterprises registered and renewed their business names under the DTI last year, driven mostly by pandemic-weary entrepreneurs who wanted to start their own mom-and-pop stores or sell products online. https://business.inquirer.net/316169/pandemic-gives-rise-to-new-entrepreneurs

A newly registered business name, however, does not automatically the enterprise is already operational. They still need to get a business permit in order to start their operations. The DTI BNR said they do not have any data on how many of these already started operations.

Without any information about who among the newly registered actually went through with operations, it is difficult to make sense of the latest DTI figures. If anything, the numbers suggest a promising beginning, but they don’t necessarily tell the full story.

Elsewhere, the numbers are grim.
Unemployment rate in October last year, according to data released in December, reached 8.7 percent, equivalent to 3.8 million unemployed Filipinos.

Moreover, job displacement data from the labor department reportedly said that nearly 87,000 establishments temporarily closed as of October last year, more than 15,500 reduced their workforce, while 1,751 closed permanently.

@InquirerBiz