Singapore job losses continue to grow as economy 'recovers'
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Q3 labour numbers: Singapore job losses continue to grow as economy 'recovers'
Singapore’s ‘jobloss recovery’ gathers momentum. From the glowing inches generated by Singapore’s main stream media on Q3 labour numbers released by MOM, the casual reader might be tempted to plow his bets into an economy that’s “turned the corner” and “definitely out of a recession”. But upon further reading, he/she might want to ask the question: if total employment increased by 15,400 jobs, why did the rate of unemployment go up?
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if 50,000 people entered the workforce and only 15,400 people got jobs, the total number of unemployed goes up by 34,600
that's how the unemployment rate went up
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Is the present increase in jobless numbers due to newcomers entering the workforce and unable to find employment ?
Or are there not more workers being retrenched, as businesses downsize - even as the Government spend money to help employers to continue to keep workers, and at the same time spending money to get workers to continue 'upgrading incontinuing the late education' ?
Friday, October 30, 2009
‘Unemployment hits 5% among Singapore residents’ (*1)
Unemployment is creeping up as the economy recovers in Singapore.
Jobless numbers tend to lag behind economic recovery, as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said a fortnight ago, and overall unemployment is still below 3.5 percent.
But it's clear the government scheme to keep unemployment low by helping people defer job search and further their studies has had only a temporary benefit.
Unemployment rose to 5 percent among the local population in September.
Job seekers at the end of training courses are finding there are still not enough jobs to go around.
Between 83,000 and 100,000 local residents are unemployed, according to the Manpower Ministry which gave both seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted figures.
The only good news is more than 15,000 new jobs were created in the third quarter, after more than 6,000 jobs were lost in the first quarter and well over 7,000 in the second quarter. "Nevertheless, the gains were significantly lower than 55,700 in the third quarter of 2008," the ministry said today.
Unemployment rate
Seasonally adjusted Sep 08 Dec 08 Mar09 June09 Sep09
Overall (%) 2.3 2.5 3.3 3.3 3.4
Resident (%) 3.4 3.6 4.8 4.4 5.0
Non-seasonally adjusted
Overall (%) 1.9 2.4 3.0 4.1 2.9
Resident (%) 2.8 3.5 4.4 5.9 4.1
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The ministry reports:
"Preliminary estimates show that the seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.4% in September 2009 from 3.3% in June 2009.
"Among the resident labour force, the rate increased to 5.0% in September 2009.
"This followed the decline from 4.8% in March 2009 to 4.6% in June 2009, when some residents then had deferred job search and pursued courses amid the difficult job market."
The report continues:
"The unemployment rates were still below the peak (overall: 4.8%; resident: 6.2%) experienced in September 2003 (due to the SARS outbreak).
"On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the overall unemployment rate decreased from 4.1% in June 2009 to 2.9% in September 2009, as students who looked for work during the mid-year school vacation have returned to school and this year's tertiary graduates have started to secure employment.
"Nevertheless, the rate was higher than 1.9% in September 2008. Among the resident labour force, the non-adjusted unemployment rate was 4.1% in September 2009, also lower than 5.9% in June 2009 but higher than 2.8% in September 2008. "
And then comes the rub.
"An estimated 83,800 residents were unemployed in September 2009. The seasonally adjusted figure was 100,300."
The ministry said:
"With a recovering economy, total employment is estimated to have grown by 15,400 in the third quarter, ending losses in the first and second quarters of 2009 (-6,200 and -7,700 respectively). Nevertheless, the gains were significantly lower than 55,700 in the third quarter of 2008.
"Services employment rose by 13,400 in the third quarter, significantly higher than the gains of 7,500 in the first and 3,800 in the second quarter this year, but lower than 34,300 in the third quarter last year.
"Construction continued to add workers (8,100), higher than the increase in the preceding quarter (4,700) and comparable to the first quarter of 2009 (8,300). Manufacturing shed workers for the fourth consecutive quarter, but the decline (-6,600) was substantially lower than in the first two quarters this year (-22,100 in 1Q 09 and -15,900 in 2Q 09)."
Job vacancy rates in all sectors remain well below their levels before the recession, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in its Macroeconomic Review yesterday.
Overall,there were only 33 job openings per 100 jobseekers, compared to an average of 72 during the 2005-07 period.
And hirings are not likely to pick up much.
Three-quarters of the 635 firms polled intend to maintain headcount, the MAS report pointed out.
The outlook is most pessimistic for the manufacturing sector, it added.
Apart from the biomedical industry, which will see increased employment arising from new investment, such as Medtronic setting up operations in Singapore, most manufacturing companies are not looking to hire in 2010 due to the uncertain business outlook.
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What about older folks leaving the workforce?
Won't that more or less balance out the new workers entering the workforce?
Wait a second, I forgot this is Singapore, the old folks don't retire and work till they kick the bucket.
It's like Hotel California, where the guest check in and don't check out.
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Originally posted by deepak.c:
What about older folks leaving the workforce?
Won't that more or less balance out the new workers entering the workforce?
Wait a second, I forgot this is Singapore, the old folks don't retire and work till they kick the bucket.
It's like Hotel California, where the guest check in and don't check out.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before -
This is a basic fundamental in economy recovery, employement will slack behind an economic recovery, firstly, employers are wary about the uncertainties of the recovery therefore do not want to commit to hiring until full stability set in, secondly, during the downturn, employers would had restructed their human resources by trimming away the unwanted ones just to stay sustainable, and when economy recover, they are poised to not to fall into the same mistake of over employing resulting in the paid of paying retrenchment later.
Therefore, no doubt the economy is recovering, but you will see a slow down in employment in the first two quarters, once both quarters presented a good picture of recovery direction, employment will bounce back as employers will be snatching for peoples. So, at the moment, it is still very much an employer market