Unemployment fell significantly with strong job creation and fewer layoffs

HIRINGS for the year-end festivities and the two integrated resorts added 38,700 jobs in the fourth quarter, cutting the overall unemployment rate to 2.1 per cent.

The new jobs created were much higher than the gains of 14,000 in the third quarter and 21,300 in same quarter a year ago, according to the fourth quarter data released by the Ministry of Manpower on Friday morning.

For the whole of 2009, total employment rose by 38,800, as job gains in the second half year more than offset the losses in the first half. The bulk of the employment gains came from services, which added 32,100 workers in the fourth quarter.

After shedding workers for four consecutive quarters, manufacturing employment rose by 1,400 in the fourth quarter. As the gains were not sufficient to offset the earlier losses, the manufacturing sector lost 43,000 jobs in 2009, said MOM.

With the strong employment growth, the seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate fell to 2.1 per cent in December, from 3.4 per cent in September. Among the resident labour force, the unemployment rate fell to 3 per cent from 5 per cent over the same period. An estimated 60,100 residents were out of work in December.

Redundancy fell for the third consecutive quarter. Based on preliminary estimates, 1,300 workers were retrenched and 200 contracts were terminated prematurely, resulting in 1,500 workers made redundant in the fourth quarter. This was substantially lower than the redundancies in the preceding quarter (2,470) and the fourth quarter of 2008 (9,410).

For the whole of last year, 22,700 workers were laid off - higher than the 16,880 in 2008, due to the spike in redundancies in the first quarter due to the economic downturn. Manufacturing formed the bulk of redundancies (59 per cent or 13,400), while services laid off 8,300 workers or 36.6 per cent and construction, 1,000 or 4.4 per cent.

Despite the economic contraction, local employment grew by 43,000 in 2009. In contrast, foreign employment fell by 4,200 compared to a record increase of 156,900 in 2008. As at December, there were 1.05 million foreigners forming 35.2 per cent of the 2.99 million workers in Singapore. The majority, comprising 64.8 per cent or 1.94 million, were locals.

- The Straits Times.