The Labour Force in Singapore Advance Release 2020 (LFAR), published on 3 December 2020 by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), showed that COVID-19 pandemic had a varied impact on different workforce segments.
Based on findings from the mid-year Comprehensive Labour Force Survey (CLFS) 2020, the LFAR typically analyses longer-term structural trends of indicators, such as employment rate and income growth, which are not reported in the quarterly labour market reports.
The employment rate for mature workers aged 65 and above continued to improve. It rose from 27.6 per cent in June last year to 28.5 per cent in June this year.
This 0.9 per cent point increase was brought about by on-going efforts to raise the employability of older workers.
On the other hand, the employment rate for younger workers aged 15 to 24 declined as more in this age group have remained in education and would have sought employment on a part-time basis, often in hospitality-related sectors that were harder hit by the pandemic.
It fell 3 per cent-points from 33.9 per cent in June 2019 to 30.9 per cent in June 2020.
Despite COVID-19’s impact on the economy, however, the overall employment rate for residents aged 25 to 64 remained high at 80.3 per cent and close to the average of 80.5 per cent in the last five years.
The unemployment rates for both PMETs (Professional, Managers, Executives and Technicians) and non-PMETs remained below previous recessionary peaks.
However, as industries more severely impacted by COVID-19 have a higher concentration of non-
PMETs, the resident unemployment rate increased by a larger magnitude for non-PMETs.
The LFAR showed that the real median income growth of full-time employed residents dipped slightly at -0.3 per cent.
This is a reversal from the 2.2 per cent growth last year.
Despite the moderation in 2020, however, real median income growth over the recent five years (2015 to 2020) at 2.7 per cent per anum remained close to that over the preceding five years (2010 to 2015) which was 3.1 per cent per annum.
There was a steeper decline in income at the 20th percentile.
Help from Government, such as the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) and other temporary, one-off payments such as the Workfare Special Payment (WSP) for lower-income earners, the COVID-19 Support Grant (CSG) for employees and the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) for the self-employed, mitigated this impact.
After adding WIS and WSP pay-outs, the 20th percentile income level in 2020 is similar to that of 2019.
In response to the findings, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said: “It is quite clear that tripartism played a big part in moderating the impact of the pandemic and gave the local employment maximum support, and it worked remarkably well.
“Tripartite efforts helped to avoid the worst and we have a reasonable footing upon which to strengthen recovery. That is what we are focused on right now.”
Read the full Labour Force in Singapore Advance Release 2020 here.
