Illustrative photo (Source:VNA) Singapore (VNA) - More workers in Singapore lost their jobs last year amid weaker economic conditions, although overall unemployment remained low, according to the latest report released by the country’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
The report showed that a total of 15,580 workers were laid off in 2015, the highest since the global financial crisis in 2009 and up 20 percent compared to 2014.
Just over half of Singaporean and Permanent Residents who were made redundant from July to September 2015 were able to find employment by the end of the year, down 55 percent against the previous quarter and 59 percent against the last quarter of 2014.
Last year, local employment grew at the slowest pace in over a decade. The number of Singaporeans and Permanent Residents in jobs rose by just 700 over the year, a stark change from 2014, when local employment grew 96,000.
However, the unemployment rate last year remained unchanged at 2.9 percent for Singaporeans, with a slight uptick to 2.8 percent when Permanent Residents are included, up from 2.7 percent in 2014.
According to MOM, the structural shift to slow local workforce growth coincided with a cyclical slowdown.
Employment growth declined due to export-oriented sectors such as manufacturing and wholesale trade seeing slowdowns, along with gloomy real estate and retail markets.-VNA
