Unemployment rate rockets in this sector

The 3.7% rate is depressing.

According to Ministry of Manpower, with employment creation remaining strong, the resident unemployment rate and number improved from a seasonally adjusted 3.0% or 62,000 in June 2011 to 2.8% or 60,200 in June 2012.

Here's more from MoM:

Similarly, the non-seasonally adjusted resident unemployment rate and number decreased over the year from 3.9% or 81,200 to 3.7% or 79,000.

The unemployment rate for all age groups improved over the year. Similarly, the unemployment rate declined across most of the education groups.

Like in earlier years, tertiary-educated residents had lower unemployment than the less-educated groups. 3.3% of degree holders and 3.4% of diploma & professional qualification holders in the resident labour force were unemployed in June 2012, compared with 4.0 to 4.3% among those with lower qualifications.

Reflecting the greater employability of higher-skilled workers, PMETs had lower unemployment rate than non-PMETs. This was particularly so for managers, administrators & working proprietors (1.9%) and professionals (2.1%), whose unemployment rates were the lowest among the major occupational groups.

At the other end, the unemployment rate was higher among service & sales workers (5.6%), cleaners, labourers & related workers (5.1%) and clerical support workers (4.9%), partly reflecting their faster staff turnover.

Manufacturing (3.7%) continued to have higher unemployment rate than the other two major sectors namely construction (2.8%) and services (3.4%) in June 2012.

Within the services sector, the unemployment rates varied widely from 1.6% in real estate services to 6.3% in accommodation & food services.