Chart of the Day: 66.5% of laid off workers in 2012 are professionals

But they were immediately re-employed.

According to Nomura, layoffs peaked in 2012 to 11,010, compared to 9,990 in 2011, and warrants monitoring, especially in the light of weak external demand and the on-going labor market restructuring.

On a quarterly basis, the rate of layoffs has picked up from 2,600 in 1Q2012 to 3,350 in 4Q2012. This number improved slightly in 1Q2013 with layoffs of 2,000.

Here's more from Nomura:

It is interesting to note that 66.5% of resident workers laid off in 2012 were from the Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians occupational group.

The positive news is that many of those who were laid off have been able to find work in short time.

However it is worth pointing out that the Ministry of Manpower has highlighted that there has been a fall in job openings over the past 12 months, especially in the PMET (-14%) , clerical, services and sales workers (-18%) and production, transport and laborers (-18%).

Declines were also observed in the wholesale trade and manufacturing segments, which contracted 33% and 23% respectively.

The fall in job opening saw the seasonally adjusted ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons fall to 110 job openings for every 100 job seekers in December 2012, vs 125 in September 2012.