Singapore's jobless rate at 14-year low
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By Saifulbahri Ismail | Posted: 15 March 2012 1201 hrs
SINGAPORE: Singapore's overall unemployment rate for the fourth quarter of 2011 and for the full year averaged 2 per cent, the lowest in 14 years.
Latest figures released on Thursday by the Ministry of Manpower showed that among citizens, the jobless rate averaged 3 per cent for the whole of last year.
On average, 60,600 residents, including 52,900 Singapore citizens, were unemployed in 2011. In 2010, 64,800 residents were unemployed, including 57,700 Singapore citizens.
However, layoffs increased in the fourth quarter of 2011, resulting in a slightly higher number of workers affected in the whole year than in 2010.
3,250 workers were made redundant in the last quarter of 2011, higher than the 1,960 laid off in the preceding quarter.
For the full year of 2011, 9,990 workers were made redundant, slightly higher than the 9,800 in 2010.
Supported by hiring for the festive season, employment growth strengthened in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 37,600, from 31,900 in the preceding quarter and 33,900 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
For the whole year, total employment increased by 122,600, or 3.9 per cent, in 2011, slightly higher than the gains of 115,900 in 2010.
Based on CPF records, 59 per cent of residents laid off in the third quarter of last year found jobs by December 2011.
This rate of re-entry into employment within six months of redundancy dipped slightly from 60 per cent in September 2011, after rising for three consecutive quarters.
Job vacancies fell by 4.3 per cent over the quarter to 51,700 in December 2011, but were still 17 per cent higher compared to 44,100 a year ago.
Meanwhile, Singapore's labour productivity declined 0.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to the previous year, following a 2 per cent rise in the third quarter.
For the whole of last year, overall labour productivity increased by 1 per cent, after rising sharply by 11 per cent in 2010.
The ministry said the moderation in productivity gains resulted from the slower GDP growth amid continuing strong employment creation.
Singapore has set itself the target of two to three per cent productivity growth over the next 10 years.
Labour economist from SIM University, Associate Professor Randolph Tan, believes the latest labour productivity figures will not derail the country's long-term productivity targets.
He said: "What it simply means is that when you compute labour productivity in this way, when there's a slowdown you need a compensating rise later on if you are to keep to your aim of improving productivity performance in the long term.
"I think for long-term productivity measures, what we need to do is to take into account more inputs than just labour inputs. Apart from labour inputs, you can take into account capital investments, spending on energy inputs and things like that."
He added: "By itself, this dip does not mean that we will not be able to achieve our long-term growth target. In fact there are other factors in the report that indicate that we could be on track to achieve quite stable performance in the labour market over the coming years, such as our improving real unit labour costs against competing manufacturing countries.
"What is needed in the long run is to reduce our dependence on manpower as the primary source of driving growth in the coming years and to focus more on improving productivity performance."
In response to strong manpower demand, foreign employment increased by 84,000 or 7.6 per cent in 2011. This followed the gains of 59,000 or 5.7 per cent in 2010.
Workers' earnings rose amid a tight labour market, with average monthly earnings increasing 4 per cent on-year in the fourth quarter of 2011.
After adjusting for inflation, real average earnings declined by 1.4 per cent in the final quarter of 2011, after dipping by 0.2 per cent in the preceding quarter.
For the whole of 2011, nominal average earnings grew by 6 per cent, after increasing by 5.6 per cent in 2010.
Weighed down by higher inflation in 2011, real average earnings rose by 0.7 per cent, following gains of 2.7 per cent in 2010.
Wage pressure from job seekers is expected to continue amid a tight labour market.
Ian Grundy, a management consultant from Adecco Singapore, said: "At the moment, where there is still such a high number of positions, the unemployment rate is still very low, and job seekers know that they still have quite a few options and that is keeping the wage pressure high.
"(This is) good for the employees, not always great for the employers, but we are going to see that continuing for a short time longer."
- CNA -
how do you define the unemployed? housewives not included right?
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retirees?
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wooohooooo~~
figures from thin air again~~~ they are getting better then david copperfield~~~
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i read somewhere if you are out of job for more than 6 mths they wont consider you as unemployed in the statistics. is it true? otherwise how they account for housewives and retirees?
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Originally posted by ^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~:
wooohooooo~~
figures from thin air again~~~ they are getting better then david copperfield~~~
tot david disappeared altogether...
and never come back...
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Originally posted by dragg:
i read somewhere if you are out of job for more than 6 mths they wont consider you as unemployed in the statistics. is it true?
otherwise how they account for housewives and retirees?If you import moreforeign workers, your unemployment rate falls too.
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"Singapore's frustration rate at 14-year high and expected to increase." wasn't published and casted aside.
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Damn lot of weird people around.
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damn stress.
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my sad story
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Originally posted by dragg:
i read somewhere if you are out of job for more than 6 mths they wont consider you as unemployed in the statistics. is it true?
otherwise how they account for housewives and retirees?they consider u unemployed
-if u are below certain age (cant be sure but I believe its is below 35 age limit);
-if out job for less than 6 mths;
-if you have been actively seeking job.
Not some or one of the aboves but all the aboves than only he/she is unemployed.
The rest are considered economically inactive - dont ask me whatever it means!! -
Originally posted by 4sg:
they consider u unemployed
-if u are below certain age (cant be sure but I believe its is below 35 age limit);
-if out job for less than 6 mths;
-if you have been actively seeking job.
Not some or one of the aboves but all the aboves than only he/she is unemployed.
The rest are considered economically inactive - dont ask me whatever it means!!
How do they know if someone is actively seeking job? They monitor their phone calls and internet lines???Let's say country ABC is totally damn jia lak, nobody can get a job for 7 months, so I guess in this case that country is 100% employment rate because the entire population is not considered unemployed as they have been jobless for more than 6 months. =)
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so what? means they sending a sign to empoyers can cut jobs lah?
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Originally posted by DailyFreeGames.com:
How do they know if someone is actively seeking job? They monitor their phone calls and internet lines???Let's say country ABC is totally damn jia lak, nobody can get a job for 7 months, so I guess in this case that country is 100% employment rate because the entire population is not considered unemployed as they have been jobless for more than 6 months. =)
yup, that's why we have singtel
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Originally posted by DailyFreeGames.com:
How do they know if someone is actively seeking job? They monitor their phone calls and internet lines???Let's say country ABC is totally damn jia lak, nobody can get a job for 7 months, so I guess in this case that country is 100% employment rate because the entire population is not considered unemployed as they have been jobless for more than 6 months. =)
If it is labour survey, they ask questions. And they use certain criterias and weightages. What the interviewee says is not final but subjects to the interviewer's guided interpretation.
For example, say two persons claim not working. One is 25 y o, another is 50 y o. The person who is 25 y o and not working, the weightage for being unemployed is higher than the person who is 50 y o and also claim not working.
If it is not a labour survey than it is gathering of data thru secondary sources like MOM, e2i, NTUC and CDC. And it is very standard with these orgs that anyone no renewing his/her unemployement status after 6 mths that person is taken off the record list.In fact, I suspect some people here know that some of the above orgs take their names off the unemployment register after 3 mths if they dont update them.
You have to take things into the right perspective. I am giving people here the insider information. Dont be like one person (long ago) who mistook me for cheng ho. I'm not!
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Originally posted by dragg:
i read somewhere if you are out of job for more than 6 mths they wont consider you as unemployed in the statistics. is it true?
otherwise how they account for housewives and retirees?
Ya, but if you register with MOM after 6 mths, then your name will still flag as unemployed, however unlike most countries, SG do not gave unemployment benefit, thus rarely anyone will bother to register as you need to take time and (some money too as you need to travel down to MOM), thus so far most plp who are unemployed for more than 6 mths dun bother and in the eyes of our govt, they are not consider unemployed anymore. -
yep, they are considered - non talent. youwant job, tell us, we giv you training. done. you take less pay, lesser than 1k - you are an asset, a talent, a asurvival, other than that - gahemn tells you get a fricking job stay employed less than 1k aloso can less be a talent oterhwise no one can blame them.
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Originally posted by 4sg:
If it is labour survey, they ask questions. And they use certain criterias and weightages. What the interviewee says is not final but subjects to the interviewer's guided interpretation.
For example, say two persons claim not working. One is 25 y o, another is 50 y o. The person who is 24 y o and not working, the weightage for being unemployed is higher than the person who is 50 y o and also claim not working.
If it is not a labour survey than it is gathering of data thru secondary sources like MOM, e2i, NTUC and CDC. And it is very standard with these orgs that anyone no renewing his/her unemployement status after 6 mths that person is taken off the record list.In fact, I suspect some people here know that some of the above orgs take their names of the unemployment register after 3 mths if they dont update them.
You have to take things into the right perspective. I am giving people here the insider information. Dont be like one person (long ago) who mistook me for cheng ho. I'm not!
thanks for the info! but I have a deep mistrust of PAP organizations... simply because like for example, the newspaper controlled by them, when journalist write negative things about PAP, they get sacked... that's not very fair... so all information from PAP must be strictly scrutinized...
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Originally posted by Toiletries:
"Singapore's frustration rate at 14-year high and expected to increase." wasn't published and casted aside.
No, cannot publish it, publish only for the sake of painting beautiful picture. Have been browsing the controlled local production Today and My Paper, all positive news, life in Singapore is so good, the govt is so perfect.
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Originally posted by Lazybumy:
Ya, but if you register with MOM after 6 mths, then your name will still flag as unemployed, however unlike most countries, SG do not gave unemployment benefit, thus rarely anyone will bother to register as you need to take time and (some money too as you need to travel down to MOM), thus so far most plp who are unemployed for more than 6 mths dun bother and in the eyes of our govt, they are not consider unemployed anymore.
In short it means whatever they say we just accept it as true? -
they say economy bad - no goodies. can giv excuse to increase this and that. they say the employment figure good. telling us if you or the next guy beside you get the sack no job - its okay actually got emplument is still good n
t down. -
Originally posted by Paem:
In short it means whatever they say we just accept it as true?
The majority of the Singaporean buy it as true. -
it was reported in today's papers even korean grads come here to work.