Singapore has undergone the fourth consecutive year of unemployment escalation, spurred by the nation’s economic restructuring, announced the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on April 23.

According to the MOM’s report, 13,000 people in Singapore lost jobs in 2014, compared with 11,560 in 2013. However, unemployment rate among Singaporean citizens dipped against 2013.

The result was buoyed by the staff redundancies in most service enterprises, which are under restructuring for greater work efficiency.

Unemployment was also recorded in the construction sector due to the decline in private building productivity.

Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) were once again the most vulnerable to layoffs, accounting for 51 percent of the total unemployment.

However, the MOM said that number of redundant employees, likely to be back in work six months later, increased in three consecutive quarters, up to 59 percent in December 2014.-VNA