SINGAPORE employers added jobs at the fastest pace in the past three quarters as businesses ramped up hiring to meet demand during the year-end festivities.
About 30,600 people found jobs in the last three months of last year, boosting the number of new positions created for the whole of last year to 112,500, according to preliminary data released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) yesterday.
This is a huge, almost threefold, increase from the 37,600 new jobs added in 2009, when the financial crisis was still sweeping across the world.
In turn, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the last quarter stood at 2.2 per cent, up marginally from the previous quarter's 2.1 per cent. On a year-on-year basis, the overall jobless rate averaged a healthy low of 2.2 per cent last year, down from the 3 per cent in 2009, as the Singapore economy rebounded strongly.
Said Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong yesterday: "Going forward, if the economy stays on track to achieve the expected 4 to 6 per cent growth this year, the labour market will remain tight.
"This underscores the need for us to press on with our efforts to raise productivity and to moderate our dependency on foreign workers."
He was speaking on the sidelines of the graduation ceremony for the pioneering batch of students who had undergone the Heartland Retail Workforce Upskilling Programme in Chua Chu Kang.
Aimed at encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to beef up their retail and service skills, the programme has grown to involve about 100 shops from six shopping centres, and about 280 people, since it began last September.
Mr Gan noted that the foreign- worker influx continues to be a matter close to the hearts of many Singaporeans, even as the number of jobs rise.
He said this is why the Government is not only urging employers to re-look their business process to raise productivity, but also to take more steps to encourage women to re-join the workforce and for older employees to work past the retirement age.
MOM's data yesterday was particularly encouraging as it showed that the unemployment rate among Singapore residents dropped significantly from 4.3 per cent in 2009 to 3.1 per cent last year. Nearly half of the new jobs - 54,200 - created last year went to locals, surpassing the 41,800 the year before.
Excluding foreign domestic workers, foreign employment rose by 53,000 over the year to stand at 31.4 per cent of the workforce in December last year, a notch up from the 30.7 per cent a year ago.
"The growth in foreign worker hires, excluding domestic workers, is lower than the 80,000 we had projected," said Mr Gan. The services sector led in the hiring last year, adding 109,500 workers, as opposed to the 55,600 increase in 2009. Jobs in the manufacturing sector, meanwhile, declined by 2,700. However, this was much lower than the 43,700 loss the year before.
According to the latest Business Expectations Survey, also released by the Government yesterday, the services sector continues to be strongly optimistic about growth in the next six months.
The amusement and recreation industry was found to be the most optimistic.
Resorts World Sentosa, for instance, said it held a very positive business outlook this year.
"We've surpassed our target of attracting 15 million visitors in our first year of operations and, as more of our attractions are slated to open within the next two years, we're looking to recruit another 2,000 to 3,000 more staff, in addition to our 12,000 employees," said Mr Robin Goh, the resort's assistant director of communications.
- My Paper
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