MOM: 14,000 new jobs, but long-term employment stays grim

The job market is looking upbeat in the short-term with 14,000 new jobs created in Q3.

The gains from this offset those in Q1 and Q2 which are 6,200, and 7,700 respectively. These are the latest figures released from the Ministry of Manpower. resulting in total employment in Sep 09 recovering to around Dec 08 level.

For the various industries, services increased by 12,700 jobs, significantly higher than the gains of 3,800 in Q2 09. Construction increased to 7,400, a faster pace than in the previous quarter at 4,700. There were still job losses in the manufacturing sector of 6,400, but losses are lower than in the first two quarters this year (Q1 09: -22,100; Q2 09: -15,900).

The overall unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.4% in Sep 09 from 3.3% in Jun 09. Among the resident labour force, the rate increased to 5.0% in Sep 09.

Long-term unemployment has risen however, amid cautious hiring sentiments during the downturn. The number of resident job seekers who had been looking for work for at least 25 weeks almost doubled from 9,600 in Sep 08 to 18,400 in Sep 09, and their share among resident job seekers increased from 17% to 22%. They formed 0.9% of the resident labour force in Sep 09 compared with 0.5% in Sep 08.

Redundancies decreased for the second consecutive quarter. 2,110 workers were retrenched and another 350 were terminated prematurely from their contracts, resulting in a total of 2,470 workers made redundant in Q3 09. This was at least lower than 5,980 in Q2 09 and the record 12,760 laid off in Q1 09.
Labour productivity also fell over the year by 0.7% in Q3 09, significantly less than the decline of 6.0% in the Q2. Over the same period, nominal earnings decreased by 3.0%, its third consecutive quarter of decline (Q1 09: -3.7%; Q2 09: -2.2%). The drop in real earnings was 2.6%, dropping lower than in the previous quarter of only 1.8%.

A note from MOM says: “In summary, the labour market has shown signs of a turnaround. Employment has recovered from the losses experienced during the downturn. Significantly fewer workers were made redundant and job vacancies increased for the second straight quarter. Nevertheless, long-term unemployment has worsened as unemployment rose in September.”