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Driven by sustained economic growth,
employment creation picked up momentum and job vacancies continued to
rise amid a positive business outlook for the second half of this year. |
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Nevertheless, difficulties faced by the less
educated and mature job seekers still remain. |
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Overall employment grew strongly by 31,700
in the second quarter of 2005, compared with 17,800 in the previous
quarter and 10,900 in the same period a year ago. |
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Both the services and manufacturing sectors
registered strong employment gains of 18,400 and 9,300 respectively.
Construction employment also rose by 3,400, reaffirming the turnaround
observed in the first quarter this year. |
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In the first half of 2005, overall
employment grew spectacularly by 49,500, double the gains of 24,600 over
the same period in 2004. This employment creation is the highest in four
and a half years |
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Based on preliminary estimates from the
General Household Survey conducted by the Department of Statistics, the
seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate was 3.4% in June 2005. |
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Among the resident1 labour force,
the unemployment rate was 4.5%. These rates are lower than a revised
3.6% (overall) and 4.7% (resident) in the same period a year ago, but
are marginally higher than the 3.3% (overall) and 4.4% (resident) in
March 20052. |
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An estimated 97,200 residents were
unemployed in June 2005. The seasonally adjusted figure was 78,900. |
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The improvement in unemployment from a year
ago was felt mainly by the better educated and younger job seekers.
Among the better educated, even mature persons experienced a notable
improvement. |
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However, this was offset by the rise in
unemployment for the less educated (i.e. those with below secondary
education) across all age groups. |
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Consequently, the non-seasonally adjusted
unemployment of mature residents aged 40 and above increased marginally
from 5.4% to 5.5%, with the less educated among them experiencing a
larger increase from 5.9% to 6.8%. This group (i.e. below secondary and
aged 40 and above) accounted for one in four or 24,900 of the local job
seekers in June 2005. |
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A survey of private sector establishments
each with at least 25 employees revealed that 2,116 workers were
retrenched in the second quarter this year. This is 2.4% lower than the
previous quarter, but 3.0% higher compared to the second quarter of
2004. |
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Private sector job openings numbered 19,2003
in June 2005. This is an increase of 9.9% over the quarter and 25% over
the year. |
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Following the improvement, the
seasonally adjusted ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons4
rose from 41 in March 2005 to 46p job openings for every
100 job seekers in June 2005. This is the highest reached in close
to four years but is still substantially below the last peak in
September 2000 when there were 135 openings for every 100 job
seekers. |
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For More Information |
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The report is available online on the
Ministry of Manpower¡¯s website at
http://www.mom.gov.sg/mrsd/publication. |
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More..... (Charts) |
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1 Refers to Singaporeans and Singapore Permanent
Residents.
2 The unemployment data obtained from the Labour
Force Survey have been revised to align with the methodology used in the General Household Survey so as to improve the
accuracy and comparability of the data.
3 Data pertain to private sector establishments each
with at least 25 employees.
4 Following the revision in unemployment data from
the Labour Force Survey, the seasonally adjusted ratio of job
vacancy to unemployed persons has also been revised.
p preliminary |
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Source:
www.mom.gov.sg Press Release 12 Sep
2005 |
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Singapore Labour Market - 2nd Quarter 2005
