Foreign employment growth hits 5-year low in 2Q14: MOM

It’s critical to raise productivity in labor-intensive sectors.

The Ministry of Manpower today revealed that foreign employment growth hit its lowest quarterly growth since 3Q 2009 in the second quarter of 2014. Foreign employment growth moderated to 3,800, while 3Q 2009’s record low is pegged at 700.

Total employment growth in 1H 2014 moderated to 52,200 excluding Foreign Domestic Workers (FDW), down from 61,100 in 1H 2013, translating to a lower year on-year growth of 3.8% in June 2014, compared to 4.2% a year ago.

This was largely driven by the slowdown in foreign employment growth (11,200), which was
less than half for the same period in 2013. The construction sector accounted for half of the 1H 2014 growth in foreign employment, due to infrastructure projects such as the Downtown and Thomson MRT lines.

The seasonally-adjusted citizen unemployment rate was 2.9% in June 2014, while the resident long-term unemployment remained amongst the lowest globally at 0.6%. Meanwhile, the 4.2% year-on-year growth in local employment in June 2014 (41,000 in 1H 2014) was supported by the continued steady increase in labour force participation of women and older residents.