Jobless rate hits 4.8%
April 30, 2009 by Daniel Ling
Jobless rate hits 4.8%
By Sue-Ann Chia, Senior Political Correspondent
Job seekers waiting to sign up as bus captains at a fair last month. Layoffs outnumbered jobs created in the first quarter this year, leading to a net loss of 1,000 jobs.
THE unemployment rate for Singaporeans and permanent residents hit a five-year high of 4.8 per cent last month, according to the latest Manpower Ministry figures, but this is still below the peak reached during the Sars crisis in 2003.The jobless rate for locals rose to 6.2 per cent in September that year, as worldwide fear of the infectious respiratory disease affected trade, tourism and business, and led to mounting job losses.
This year’s jobless level is expected to worsen, with most analysts agreed that the recession has not bottomed out yet.The current swine flu outbreak adds to uncertainties over the economy and job market. The Manpower Ministry figures showed a rising trend in job losses over the past year. (See chart)
There were 12,600 redundancies in the first three months of the year, the highest quarterly figure in a decade, surpassing the quarterly peak of 8,890 in 2001 due to the dot.com bust and terrorist attacks in the United States.
Most losses - 9,000 - were from the beleaguered manufacturing sector. Another 2,900 came from the services sector, and 700 from construction. The redundancy numbers are in line with what analysts have predicted.
Barclays economist Leong Wai Ho, for instance, said he had predicted that 12,000 people would lose their jobs in the first quarter. He said this was a relatively low figure despite the severity of the slowdown because of government measures like the Jobs Credit scheme which subsidises the wage bill for local workers, and the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) which encourages employers to retrain workers.
MOM figures showed that overall unemployment here rose from 2.5 per cent last December to 3.2 per cent last month, with 95,600 people out of work.
The unemployment rate which excludes foreigners, however, spiked much more, jumping from 3.6 per cent to 4.8 per cent over the same period.
April 30, 2009 by Daniel Ling
Jobless rate hits 4.8%
By Sue-Ann Chia, Senior Political Correspondent
Job seekers waiting to sign up as bus captains at a fair last month. Layoffs outnumbered jobs created in the first quarter this year, leading to a net loss of 1,000 jobs.
THE unemployment rate for Singaporeans and permanent residents hit a five-year high of 4.8 per cent last month, according to the latest Manpower Ministry figures, but this is still below the peak reached during the Sars crisis in 2003.The jobless rate for locals rose to 6.2 per cent in September that year, as worldwide fear of the infectious respiratory disease affected trade, tourism and business, and led to mounting job losses.
This year’s jobless level is expected to worsen, with most analysts agreed that the recession has not bottomed out yet.The current swine flu outbreak adds to uncertainties over the economy and job market. The Manpower Ministry figures showed a rising trend in job losses over the past year. (See chart)
There were 12,600 redundancies in the first three months of the year, the highest quarterly figure in a decade, surpassing the quarterly peak of 8,890 in 2001 due to the dot.com bust and terrorist attacks in the United States.
Most losses - 9,000 - were from the beleaguered manufacturing sector. Another 2,900 came from the services sector, and 700 from construction. The redundancy numbers are in line with what analysts have predicted.
Barclays economist Leong Wai Ho, for instance, said he had predicted that 12,000 people would lose their jobs in the first quarter. He said this was a relatively low figure despite the severity of the slowdown because of government measures like the Jobs Credit scheme which subsidises the wage bill for local workers, and the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) which encourages employers to retrain workers.
MOM figures showed that overall unemployment here rose from 2.5 per cent last December to 3.2 per cent last month, with 95,600 people out of work.
The unemployment rate which excludes foreigners, however, spiked much more, jumping from 3.6 per cent to 4.8 per cent over the same period.
