Unemployment rate for Singapore residents climbed to 2.9%

But job vacancies rose.

According to the Minstry of Manpower, the unemployment rate for residents rose to 2.9% from 2.7%, while the citizen unemployment rate was unchanged at 2.9%.

The seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate remained low at 1.9% in March 2013, compared with 1.8% in December 2012. Long-term unemployment improved slightly over the year. 13,700 unemployed residents making up 0.6% of the resident labour force in March 2013 had been looking for work for at least 25 weeks, down from 14,000 or 0.7% a year ago.

Total employment grew by 28,900 in the first quarter of 2013, substantially lower than the seasonal high increase of 44,000 in the last quarter of 2012, but slightly above the 27,200 in the first quarter of 2012.

This brought total employment to 3,386,500 in March 2013, which was 4.0% higher than a year ago.
Redundancy declined, after rising in the preceding two quarters. 2,120 workers were made redundant in the first quarter of 2013. This was lower than the 3,350 workers affected in the preceding quarter and 2,600 in the first quarter of 2012.

Job openings rose, after declining in the previous quarter. The seasonally adjusted vacancies increased over the quarter by 17% in March 2013, reversing the decline of 7.0% in December 2012.

With the increase in job vacancies, the seasonally adjusted ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons rose from 1.05 in December 2012 to 1.21 in March 2013, back to around the level of 1.23 in September 2012.