More than 115,000 jobs created last year

There were a total of 115,900 jobs created in Singapore for the whole of last year. This was a slight adjustment to an earlier estimate of 112,500.

The Manpower Ministry said the total employment growth far exceeded the 37,600 jobs in 2009.

In its labour market report for 2010, MOM highlighted that the labour market recovered strongly last year from the 2009 recession, bolstered by the robust economic performance.

Recruitment companies also said that job-seekers are also finding work in shorter periods of time.

Foong Wei Liang, Talent Attraction Manager at Adecco, said: "Due to the fact that employers are going to need to hire quickly when they have determined that a candidate is right for their organisation, experienced and qualified job seekers know that they may have several job offers to choose from.

"Any procrastination from hiring managers could see lost recruitment opportunities and that's not something that any organisation wants to endure when the labour market is so tight."

The services sector contributed the bulk of employment gains of 111,000 in 2010, almost double that the previous year.

Construction employment grew by 2,500 down substantially from the gains of 25,100 in 2009.

This was mainly due to the completion of several large building projects and fewer new projects coming on stream.

Manufacturing employment declined by 1,100. However, this was much lower than the losses of 43,700 in 2009.

Last year, local employment grew by 56,200 while the number of foreigners, excluding foreign domestic workers, employed increased by 54,400.

As at December 2010, there were 1,992,700 locals in employment, forming around two in three of the 3,105,900 persons employed in Singapore. The remaining 1,113,200 were foreigners.

Overall unemployment rate was 2.2 per cent last year, down significantly from 3 per cent in 2009.

Fewer workers were laid off for the whole of 2010, despite an increase in the last quarter.

Redundancies for the whole year totalled 9,800 down from 23,430 in 2009. This was the second lowest redundancy level, since the start of the data series in 1998.

With the strong economy, job vacancies rose by 23 per cent in December last year, after dipping slightly in September.

With the tighter labour market, workers' earnings have risen.

Nominal earnings grew by 7.5 per cent over the year in the fourth quarter of 2010. Weighed down by higher inflation, real earnings rose by 3.4 per cent.

Labour productivity has also increased, driven by the strong output growth. It grew over the year by 7.8 per cent in the fourth quarter, higher than the 6.2 per cent increase in the previous quarter.

- Channel News Asia