Resident employment reaches record high, while unemployment stays low
The labour market of Singapore continued to improve "on all fronts," according to Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, as they expect further easing of labour market tightness in the coming months.
Total employment continued to expand by 42,000 in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Labour Market survey, driven by increases from non-residents due to border restrictions easing.
Non-resident employment, however, remained 15% below December 2019, while resident employment soared 3.9% above pre-pandemic levels.
Resident employment increased the sectors of Financial Services, Information & Communications, Professional Services, and Health & Social Services, but it declined in consumer-facing sectors due to the departure of temporary workers.
Unemployment, retrenchment
Unemployment rates also remained low in the first half of the year, while retrenchments declined to record low, according to the report.
"Unemployment rates trended lower over the month for citizens in April 2022 (from 3.2% to 3.1%) and held steady at its pre-pandemic levels for residents and the overall labour force (3.0% and 2.2% respectively)," read the study.
For retrenchments, it declined to 1,320 in the first half of the year from the previous 1,500 in fourth quarter of 2021.
"Among retrenched residents, the percentage who re-entered employment within six months post retrenchment rose (from 67% to 72%) to a high last seen in 2015," said the report.
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It added that employers also placed fewer employees on a temporary layoff as business activities resumed and manpower shortages rose.
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Job vacancies also increased, according to the report, while recruitment and recruitment and resignation rates remained unchanged from the previous quarter.
Manpower Minister Tan said on a Facebook post that he is "pleased" with the recent developments in the job market.
"I am pleased to see that the labour market continued to improve on all fronts in the first quarter of 2022," said Tan in a statement.
He added that they are expecting this positive trend to continue as border restrictions get lifted, and as the government continues to extend help to employers so they can upskill staff.
"With the relaxation of border restrictions, we expect the inflow of non-resident workers to continue increasing, which will help to ease the tightness in the labour market in coming months," the minister said.
"At the same time, the Government will continue to support companies to upskill their local workforce, to help them adapt to new growth areas and meet the labour demand."
The report, however, cautioned that the ongoing conflicts outside Singapore could also have an effect to the local labour market.
"The deterioration of the external economic environment, due in part to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, has weakened the demand outlook for some of our outward-oriented sectors," it said.
"This may in turn cool labour demand going forward. As such, firms should press on with restructuring and transformation to maintain their competitiveness."