Skip to main content
 
About us
Search

Labour Market, Third Quarter 2010

Statistics and publications
15 December 2010

  1. The Singapore economy continued to create jobs in the third quarter of 2010, though the pace has eased from the robust gains earlier in the year. Employment rose by 20,500 in the third quarter of 2010, after growing by 24,900 in the preceding and 36,500 in the first quarter. This brought total gains in the first nine months to 82,000, in contrast to an almost flat growth of 100 over the same period last year when the economy was in recession.
  2. Services added 21,300 workers in the third quarter of 2010, less than the gains of 25,400 in the preceding quarter. Manufacturing employment fell (-700), though the decline eased from the previous quarter (-2,300). Construction employment was flat after slight gains in the second quarter, due to the completion of several large building projects such as the Integrated Resorts and fewer new projects coming on stream.
  3. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell slightly to 2.1% (overall) and 3.1% (resident) in September 2010 from 2.2% (overall) and 3.2% (resident) in both March and June 2010. This was a significant improvement from a year ago, when unemployment peaked at 3.3% (overall) and 4.8% (resident) during the economic downturn. There were 54,200 unemployed residents in September 2010. The seasonally adjusted number was 63,000, down from 65,500 in June 2010 and 97,500 in September 2009.
  4. Long-term unemployment also improved. The number of residents who had been looking for work for at least 25 weeks fell to 11,200 or 0.5% of the resident labour force in September 2010 from 18,300 or 0.9% in September 2009. Their share among the pool of resident job seekers improved slightly from 22% to 21%.
  5. Workers made redundant continued to decrease from 2,280 in the second quarter of 2010 to 1,930 in the third quarter of 2010, comprising 1,440 retrenched workers and 490 workers whose contracts were terminated prematurely. The decline came mainly from the manufacturing sector (from 1,220 to 970). Similarly, redundancies declined in the services (from 920 to 820) and construction (from 150 to 140) sectors.
  6. Re-employment prospects continued to improve as the economy recovers. CPF records showed that nearly six in ten (58%) residents laid off in the second quarter of 2010 were re-employed by September 2010. This was a significant improvement from the low of 43% in June 2009.
  7. Job vacancies rose by 36% over the year to 50,200 in September 2010, the highest recorded since the comparable series started in March 2006. After adjusting for seasonality, job vacancies dipped slightly by 1.7% from the previous quarter, after rising for five straight quarters. With the decline in unemployment, the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons edged up to a seasonally adjusted 1.06 in September 2010 from 1.04 in June 2010. This marked the sixth straight quarter of increase after the low of 0.36 in March 2009.
  8. The monthly resignation and recruitment rates averaged 2.1% and 3.0% respectively in the third quarter of 2010, up from 1.8% and 2.5% in the same period last year. With seasonal adjustment, both rates dipped over the quarter by 0.1%-point, after rising generally for four consecutive quarters.
  9. Labour productivity growth over the year moderated to 6.3% in the third quarter from 15% in the previous quarter, as the effects of the cyclical upturn begin to wear off. Growth in nominal earnings over the year eased to 5.4% in the third quarter of 2010 from 5.8% in the second quarter of 2010. Coupled with a slight increase in inflation in the third quarter (at 3.4% compared to second quarter’s 3.1%), the increase in real earnings was 2.1%, which was 0.5%-point lower than in the previous quarter.
  10. In summary, employment growth has eased after robust gains earlier in the year. Nevertheless, redundancies continued to decline and unemployment improved to its lowest in two and a half years.