Jobless rate falls to 2.1%! 3 Cheers!

[RonRon]

THE Singapore labour market showed resilience and grew for the first time amid an economic recession in 2009, with overall unemployment rate falling to 2.1 per cent last December.

It weathered the 2009 recession better than previous downturns, supported by the Resilience Package and concerted tripartite efforts to save jobs.

Employment rebounded in the second half of the year, with employment gains for residents while the foreigners' share fell, according to a labour market report for 2009 released by the Ministry of Manpower on Monday morning.

Total employment in 2009 grew by 37,600 or 1.3 per cent last year despite the economy contracting by 2.2 per cent. Local employment rose by 41,800 or 2.2 per cent, with most gains in the fourth quarter, propelled by hiring in the services sector for the year-end festivities and integrated resorts.

Employment only started to fall in the first quarter, three quarters after gross domestic product (GDP) started declining in the second quarter of 2008. This was unlike previous downturns in 2001 and 1997/98 when employment lagged GDP by two quarters, said the report.

With strong employment growth in the last quarter, the overall unemployment rate fell from a seasonally adjusted 3.4 per cent in September to 2.1 per cent in December. As the economy emerged from the recession, redundancies fell for the third successive quarter to 2,220 in Q4, returning to to pre-recession quarterly levels.

 

[trumpetdog]

Hooray! I'm so happy to be one of the select few!

 

[myfoot123]

[COLOR="_______"]Never seen such dramatic U turn in any other countries before.

When election is a distant things, we have ministers calling Singaporeans to work harder, faster and cheaper and urging employers to cut cost by all means. Than another minister said unemployment at 3.1% will be a norm regardless of good and bad "weather" and that lower unemployment rate will be a thing of a past.

However, now that election is drawing near, unemployment rate dramatically plunged to 2.1% - a clear sign that LHL said he will fix statistic figures to look good for his party in order to pull wool over everyone's eyes again.

Nevertheless even if unemployment rate become zero percentage, the trust for PAP has been lost. They can pull out all questionable statistics to look good, but as Leong Sze Hian has done to anaylse govt statistics many times, such statistics have no ground to begin with. [/COLOR]

 

[zuoom]

possible. the recent recruitment drive by the two major IR took in quite a bit of local personnel.

and many other business are back on the hiring spee. though they probably scale back or stop when some of the measures announced by the govt was halted.

what kind employment are people on now? on what kind of pay scale?