SINGAPORE: Singapore’s overall unemployment rate was 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2017, according to the labor market report issued by the Ministry of Manpower on Tuesday. The figure was equal to that for the previous quarter, but 0.3 percentage points higher than that for the same period of 2016. Meanwhile, the country’s resident unemployment and citizen unemployment rates were 3.2 percent and 3.5 percent respectively.
The number of unemployed residents was 74,400, and the number of unemployed citizens was 67,100. The report said Singapore’s total employment declined 6,800 in the first quarter of 2017, a reversal from the modest growth of 2,300 in the fourth quarter of 2016. The decline was mainly from the manufacturing sector and the construction sector, which recorded 4,300 and 12,500 in employment decline, respectively, according to the report. The number of newly laid-off workers was 4,000 in the first quarter of 2017, lower than that of 5,440 for the previous quarter and that of 4,710 for the year-earlier period.
The seasonally-adjusted ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons stood at 0.81 in the first quarter of 2017, a bit lower as compared to 0.77 for the previous quarter. That is because the vacancies for private sector establishments with less than 25 employees are estimated to have risen from 15,500 in December 2016 to 20,000 in March 2017.
