Over 13,000 laid off by October 2016

MOM report: worst number since 2009

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) released ‘Labour Market Report for the 3rd quarter of 2016’ on Dec 13, 2016. It cited the contraction in Singapore employment was caused by subdued global economic conditions, resulted in lesser job vacancies to unemployed ratio.

Here are the 5 outstanding points in the report:

1) 13,730 workers lost their jobs in the first 9 months of 2016. This is higher than the same period in 2015 (10,220) and the highest since 2009 (21,210).

2) Almost half of residents who were retrenched in the 2Q of 2016 managed to secure the new jobs by September 2016.

3) The services sector has the highest growth in employment. During the period from January to September this year, the construction and manufacturing sectors shed 3,200 and 8,900 jobs respectively. But an increase of 27,100 jobs was seen in the services sector. The decrease in in the manufacturing and construction sectors is said to affect work permit holders.

4) Unemployment rate remains unchanged. The overall unemployment rate remained at 2.1% in September, unchanged since June. But the long-term (at least 25 weeks) unemployment rate has gone up to 0.8% in September from 0.6% a year ago.

5) The number of job vacancies rose to 50,800 in September from 49,400 in June. But there were more job-seekers than job openings: 91 openings per 100 job-seekers in September, lower than 93 openings in June 2016.

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