You’re fired: 1,900 workers left jobless in Q2 2011

1,500 workers were retrenched and 400 had their contracts terminated prematurely.

According to a release by Ministry of Manpower, the total employment growth moderated in the second quarter this year. Preliminary estimates show that total employment grew by 22,800 in the second quarter of 2011. The gains were lower than the 28,300 in the preceding quarter and 24,900 in the same quarter last year.
The bulk or 18,800 of the employment gains came from services. Construction added 2,600 workers and manufacturing employment rose by 1,300.

Based on preliminary estimates, 1,500 workers were retrenched and 400 had their contracts terminated prematurely, resulting in a total of 1,900 workers made redundant in the second quarter of 2011. This was substantially lower than the 2,750 redundancies in the preceding quarter.

Services laid off 900 workers, followed by manufacturing with 600. Construction displaced another 400 workers.

With the slower employment growth, the overall unemployment rate increased from a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in March 2011 to 2.1% in June 2011. Over the same period, the unemployment rate for residents rose from 2.7% to 3.0%. This brought the unemployment rates to around the levels in 2010, after declining in the first quarter this year.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the overall and resident unemployment rates in June 2011 were 2.7% and 4.0% respectively. The unemployment rates were higher than in March 2011, reflecting the increase in job seekers as tertiary graduates entered the labour market and students sought employment during the mid-year school vacation. Nevertheless, the rates were slightly lower than in June 2010. An estimated 81,300 residents were unemployed in June 2011. The seasonally adjusted figure was 62,700.  

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