Employment up 50% in 4Q 2010

The services sector contributed 97.3 percent of the job gains, OCBC said.

Full-year employment gains went up to 112,500 compared to 2009's 37,600. Employment in 4Q 2010 rose to 30,600.

Construction sector contributed 2% of the job gains. However, manufacturing shed 2,700 jobs.

Local employment grew by 30% y-o-y to 54,200 in 2010, while foreign employment rose by 58,300. Excluding foreign domestic workers, foreign employment rose by 53,000 in 2010. As at Dec 2010, there were 1.99 million locals forming 64.2% of the 3.1 million persons employed in Singapore, while the remaining 35.8% were foreigners. Excluding foreign domestic workers, the foreigners’ share of employment was 31.4% in December 2010.

In Q4 2010, 2,500 workers were retrenched and 700 had their contracts terminated prematurely, resulting in a total of 3,200 workers made redundant, higher than Q3’s 1,930. For 2010 full-year, 9,800 workers were made redundant, down substantially from 23,430 in 2009. Manufacturing laid off 4,700 workers in 2010, followed by services (3,800) and construction (1,300).