Q3 Employment Continues to Rise

1 Employment creation in Singapore continued to be strong in the third quarter of 2005, sustaining the improving trend of the past 8 quarters. Preliminary estimates show healthy employment gains of 28,700 in the third quarter. This increase was double the 14,100 in the same period last year, although slightly lower than the gains of 31,700 in the second quarter. The latest strong gains meant that Singapore’s economy had registered a significant increase of 78,200 jobs in the first 9 months of 2005.

2 All major sectors registered employment growth. The bulk of employment gains came from the services sector (18,400). Manufacturing employment also rose by 8,000, driven mainly by gains in the marine industries. Construction sector continued to add workers (2,300) for the third consecutive quarter.

Retrenchment

3 Preliminary findings from a survey of private sector establishments each with at least 25 employees show that 2,500 workers were retrenched in the third quarter of 2005. This was an increase of 18% from the quarter before and 27% from the same period a year ago.

4 The manufacturing sector laid off 1,700 or slightly more than two-thirds of the total workers retrenched in the quarter, mainly in the electronics industries. The remaining 800 or one-third of the layoffs were contributed by the services sector.

Unemployment

5 Preliminary estimates show that the seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate improved slightly to 3.3% in September 2005 from 3.4% registered three months ago. Among the resident labour force, the rate was 4.4%, also lower than the 4.5% in June 2005.

6 On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the overall unemployment rate dropped sharply from 4.3% in June 2005, when this year’s batch of tertiary graduates joined the pool of job seekers, to 2.9% in September 2005 as more job seekers secured employment. The seasonal decline also resulted from fewer students looking for temporary jobs as they returned to school after the mid-year vacation. Among the resident labour force, the non-adjusted rate was 3.8% in September 2005. An estimated 69,400 residents were unemployed in September 2005. The seasonally adjusted figure was 81,200.

For More Information

7 For information on data sources and coverage, as well as definitions of key concepts used in the report, please refer to the attached Explanatory Notes. The preliminary data estimates are available online at the Ministry of Manpower’s website at http://www.mom.gov.sg/mrsd/publication. A more detailed breakdown of the preliminary estimates will be released in the 3rd Quarter 2005, Economic Survey of Singapore.