Chart of the Day: Employees on short work-week more than doubled to 900 in Q1

Four in five were from the manufacturing sector.

This chart from the Ministry of Manpower (MoM) shows that employees on short work-week more than doubled (143%) MoM to 900 in Q1 2019 from 370 in Q4 2018.

Based on the data, employees on short work-week saw a declining trend from Q3 2017 (880) until Q4 2018 (370). Meanwhile, the number of employees placed on temporary layoffs declined 55% QoQ to 40 from 90 in Q4 2018.

Also read: Retrenchments grew to 3,230 in Q1 over manufacturing cutbacks

The ministry noted that employees placed on short work-week or temporary layoff were mainly from manufacturing (80%), followed by construction (14%) and services (6.0%). By occupation, two-third of employees (68%) were PMETs, whilst the remaining were production & related workers (26%) and clerical, sales & service workers (6.4%).