The economy showed signs of further recovery in 4Q2021. The Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM’s) latest Labour Market Advance Release (LMAR), issued on 28 January 2022, found that resident employment continued to expand, with non-resident employment – excluding migrant domestic workers – showing signs of growth for the first time in two years.
Resident employment growth was largely attributed to seasonal hiring in the food & beverages services and retail trade. It was the first time in two quarters that the sectors saw growth since 1Q2021.
Meanwhile, non-resident employment saw considerable increase in the construction sector, which was partly due to the resumption of entry approvals for workers in the construction, marine shipyard and process sector (CMP).
Taking to Facebook, NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay said that he expects to see a more positive labour market further into 2022, with improving unemployment rates and low retrenchments.
“This is with the caveat that many businesses are and will be undergoing digital transformation, reorganisation, restructuring and re-strategisation which may impact roles whilst spiking demand in new skill areas. This is also against a backdrop of a continued uneven recovery, uncertain outlook and with deeply impacted industries still having to navigate the uncertainty,” he wrote.
Mr Tay added that with Budget 2022 around the corner, he hopes to see wider and continued support by the Government for the workers.
Beyond F&B and retail, resident employment has continued to show steady growth in outward-oriented sectors like Information & Communications and Financial Services.
The LMAR reported that the Information & Communications sector saw strong demand for IT and digital solutions, as well as robust game and software publishing activities.
Employment in the financial services sector was likely to have benefitted from fund management activities during the quarter.
Other than the CMP sector, non-resident employment in the other sectors have remained relatively flat.
However, it is worth noting that this comes after several quarters of decline, which may be a sign of the start of a slow recovery.
A 0.1 percentage-point drop in overall unemployment was observed in December 2021, compared to November 2021.
Overall unemployment numbers fell from 2.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent, with citizen unemployment rate falling from 3.5 per cent down to 3.4 per cent.
The resident unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.2 per cent.
Retrenchments are also expected to decline further for 4Q2021.
It was observed that reorganisation or restructuring was the most common reasons for retrenchments in 2021.
