Job Vacancies In Singapore Reached New High
SINGAPORE – The latest data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) showed that job vacancies in the city-state hit a new high of 128,100 in Q1 2022, reported The Business Times on Friday morning (17 June, SGT).
Nonetheless, the rate of increase (9 percent) was lower compared to the preceding quarter, and a higher re-entry rate of 72 percent was seen among residents six months after being laid off.
Most of the job vacancies were in the construction and manufacturing industry, financial services sector, information and communications, public administration and education, as well as the professional services sector. For the construction and manufacturing industry, the job vacancies primarily comprised non-PMET (professional, managerial, executive, and technical) roles that are usually held by migrant workers.
But due to a fall in unemployed people and rise in vacancies, the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed individuals also increased to 2.42, the highest since 1998.
Still, the latest statistics revealed from MOM revealed that overall employment, excluding migrant domestic workers, increased by 42,000 in Q1 2022 compared to the prior quarter.
“Most of the total employment increase in Q1 were from non-residents, as border restrictions were progressively lifted and employers back-filled vacancies for jobs that are more reliant on migrant workers,” said the Ministry.
“With significant relaxation of border restrictions, we expect the non-resident workforce to continue to recover, catching up with the strong resident employment growth over the past 2 years,” noted the government agency, adding that this would help provide some relief to the current labour market tightness.
Even so, the Ministry of Manpower thinks that the deterioration of the external economic environment, partly because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has negatively impacted the demand outlook for some outward-oriented industries, and this may slow down the labour market.
Nonetheless, the number of retrenchments in Singapore dropped to 1,320 during the first quarter of the year from 1,500 in Q4 2021.
