Source
Administrative records. The self-employed component is estimated from the Labour Force Survey.

Coverage
The employment data comprises all persons in employment i.e. employees and the self–employed. However, it excludes males who are serving their 2-year full-time national service liability in the Singapore Armed Forces, Police and Civil Defence Forces.

Data on the number of local employees are compiled from the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board’s administrative records of active contributors defined as local employees who have at least one CPF contribution paid for him/her. A local employee is any Singaporean or Permanent Resident of Singapore who is employed by an employer under a contract of service or other agreement entered into in Singapore. Every local employee and his/her employer are required to make monthly contributions to the CPF which is a compulsory savings scheme to provide workers financial security in old age and helps meet the needs of healthcare, home-ownership, family protection, and asset enhancement.

Data on foreigners working in Singapore are compiled from the stock of foreigners on valid work passes issued by the Ministry of Manpower. Foreigners can work in Singapore only if they have valid work passes issued by the Ministry of Manpower, upon application by their employers.

The number of self-employed persons is estimated from the Labour Force Survey. The self-employed comprises persons aged 15 years and over who performed some work for profit or family gain, in cash or in kind.

Concepts and Definitions
Employment change refers to the difference in the employment level at the end of the reference period compared with the end of the preceding period.

Uses and Limitations
This data series allows users to identify individual industries where employment is growing or stagnating. An analysis of the data over time also helps in understanding the impact of economic cyclical and structural changes on the demand for workers. Detailed data are published in the quarterly Labour Market Report.

The change in employment over time is the net result of increases and decreases in employment i.e. net of inflows and outflows of workers. Users should not mistake an increase in employment as gross job creation.

Unemployment

Source
Labour Force Survey

(except for Jun 2005 data which were obtained from the General Household Survey conducted by Department of Statistics as the Labour Force Survey was not conducted for the period.)

Coverage
The survey covers private households on the main island of Singapore. It excludes workers living in construction worksites, dormitories and workers’ quarters at the workplace and persons commuting from abroad to work in Singapore. To achieve full coverage of the labour force in Singapore, data on residents from the survey are combined with foreign workforce data compiled from work passes issued by the Ministry of Manpower.

Concepts and Definitions
Unemployed Persons refer to persons aged 15 years and over who were without work during the survey reference period but were available for work and were actively looking for a job. They include persons who were not working but were taking steps to start their own business or taking up a new job after the reference period.

Unemployment Rate is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons to the total number of economically active persons (i.e. employed and unemployed persons) aged 15 years and over.

Uses and Limitations
The unemployment rate is probably the best-known measure of the labour market. It measures unutilised labour supply and is useful in the study of the economic cycle as it is closely related to the fluctuations in the business cycle.

Unemployment can have frictional, cyclical and structural elements. As it takes time for job seekers and employers to find a match, there is always a certain level of frictional unemployment due to people changing jobs and from new entrants looking for work for the first time. Unemployment can also be structural e.g. arising from a mismatch between the job seekers and the job openings available. With structural unemployment, even if job vacancies and job seekers coexist in the labour market, they may not be matched over a long period of time. Finally, unemployment can be cyclical. This occurs when there is a general decline in demand for manpower as aggregate demand for goods and services fall in the event of a cyclical downturn. Unlike structural and frictional unemployment where the problem is in matching job openings with job seekers, cyclical unemployment occurs when there are not enough jobs to go around.

Unemployment can vary due to changes in demand or supply of manpower. It can decline if more people succeed in securing employment or when the unemployed persons stop to look for a job and leave the labour force either temporarily (e.g. to take up training) or permanently (e.g. to retire). Conversely, unemployment may rise due to increase in labour supply from new entrants or re-entrants to the labour market. It will also rise if more people quit their jobs to look for alternative employment or if there is an increase in layoffs.

Retrenchment

Source
Labour Market Survey

Coverage
The survey covers private sector establishments each with at least 25 employees.

Concepts and Definitions
Retrenchment refers to the termination of employment of a permanent employee due to redundancy.

Uses and Limitations
Data on retrenchment are useful in the analysis of re-structuring or ailing industries. Detailed data are published in the quarterly Labour Market Report.

The number of persons retrenched (flow) should not be confused with persons unemployed (stock). Not all persons retrenched will be unemployed as some will be re-employed or decide to leave the workforce. Similarly, the pool of unemployed persons comes not only from retrenchments, but also from new entrants to the labour force such as school leavers and the economically inactive who decide to re-join the workforce.

1 The Manpower Research and Statistics Department is revising the coverage and estimation procedures used in the quarterly Labour Force Survey to yield more accurate estimates of unemployment obtained from the survey. This revision will align the survey methodology with that used in the General Household Survey, 2005 conducted by the Department of Statistics so that the data obtained from both surveys are more comparable.

2 As the Labour Force Survey is conducted on a representative sample of households in Singapore, its coverage excludes construction workers living on site and workers commuting from abroad to work in Singapore. To achieve full coverage of the total labour force in Singapore, the new methodology combines data on residents (comprises Singapoeans and Singapore Permanent Residents) obtained from the survey with foreign workforce data compiled from work passes issued by the Ministry of Manpower.

3 Being a sample survey, data obtained from the Labour Force Survey are grossed up to the population aggregates by using appropriate expansion factor(s). The estimation procedures of the survey will be improved by using multiple expansion factors of gender and residential status to gross up the data rather than a single expansion factor used currently.

4 These changes will enable the Labour Force Survey to yield more accurate estimates of unemployment. It will also enhance comparability of data with those obtained from the General Household Survey, 2005 conducted by the Department of Statistics.

5 By applying the new methodology to survey data obtained in previous years, the unemployment data from March 1992 onwards have been revised. The overall and resident unemployment rates before and after the revision are provided in Tables 1 and 2 and charted below. The revision has the effect of reducing the overall unemployment rate as the denominator i.e. total labour force is now larger, taking into account full coverage of the foreign workforce. However, the trend movement over time remains broadly the same. The impact of the revision on the resident unemployment rate series is minimal.

CHART 1: OVERALL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

CHART 2: RESIDENT UNEMPLOYMENT RATE