Singapore's employment in 1Q continued to grow strongly

Total employment is estimated to have grown by 34,000 in the first quarter, the third quarterly increase after two quarters of decline in the first half of 2009.

The employment growth was slightly lower than the 37,500 in the last quarter of 2009, which was a seasonal high due to the year-end festivities. In contrast, employment fell by 6,200 in the first quarter last year due to the global economic downturn.

The bulk of the employment gains continued to come from services, with an addition of 31,200 workers in the first quarter of 2010, comparable to 31,500 in the previous quarter. Manufacturing added 3,400 workers, a second consecutive increase, after shedding workers for four consecutive quarters. Construction registered a small decline of 800 workers, after 20 successive quarters of employment gains starting from the first quarter of 2005.

Retrenchment and Redundancy

Based on preliminary estimates, 1,600 workers were retrenched and 500 contracts were terminated prematurely, resulting in a total of 2,100 workers made redundant in the first quarter of 2010. This was comparable to the 2,220 workers made redundant in the previous quarter and was only 16% of the record 12,760 workers affected in the first quarter of 2009.

Redundancies in manufacturing rose to 1,000 from 860 in the previous quarter. Services laid off 800 workers, down from 1,080 in the preceding quarter. Construction laid off 300 workers, compared with 250 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Unemployment

With the strong job gains, the seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate dipped to 2.2% in March 2010 from a revised 2.3% in December 2009 (December 2009 data have been revised from 2.1% to 2.3%, after annual updating of seasonal factors). Similarly, among the resident labour force, the unemployment rate dipped to 3.2% from a revised 3.3% in December 2009.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the overall unemployment rate was 2.1%, unchanged from December 2009 but significantly lower than the 3.0% in March 2009. The resident unemployment was 3.1%, slightly higher than 2.9% in December 2009 but also significantly lower than the 4.4% in March 2009. An estimated 63,400 residents were unemployed in March 2010. The seasonally adjusted figure was 66,300.