Leong Sze Hian
According to the Ministry of Manpower’s Labour Market Third Quarter 2009 Report, released on 15 December, Singapore’s real GDP grew by 0.6% over the year in Q3 09, after three consecutive quarters of contraction.
However, long-term unemployment has worsened as unemployment rose in September.
The seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.4% in Sep 09 from 3.3% a quarter ago. Among the resident labour force, the rate increased to 5.0% in Sep 09. This followed the decline from 4.8% in Mar 09 to 4.6% in Jun 09, when some residents then had deferred their job search and pursued courses amid the difficult job market (pg. 3)
How did we come to the conclusion that the resident unemployment rate declined from March to June – because “when some residents then had deferred their job search and pursued courses amid the difficult job market”?
So, are we saying that these residents have now decided to start searching for jobs again because the job market is no longer perceived as difficult? And that lesser residents are pursuing courses? Consequently, that’s why the resident unemployment has gotten worse again?
As to “Nevertheless, the unemployment rates were still below the peak (overall: 4.8%; resident: 6.2%) experienced in Sep 03 due to the SARS outbreak” (also pg. 3), this is akin to saying its getting worse, but its not as bad as the worse ever! Some consolation for Singaporeans who are unemployed!
The seasonally adjusted figure for unemployed residents was 100,300 in September, higher than the 91,500 in Jun 09 (pg. 3)
The unemployment rate rose for residents across most age-education groups from Sep 08 to Sep 09. Degree holders and secondary educated residents registered above-average increases in unemployment rate from 2.1% to 3.5% and 3.3% to 5.2% respectively (pg. 4)
What this means is that the more educated you are, the highest was the percentage increase in the unemployment rate by 1.67 times from 2.1% to 3.5%.
Mature residents aged 40 & over as a group posted larger increase in unemployment rate over the year than those in their 30s or younger. Consequently, mature residents made up about half (49% or 41,000) of the resident job seekers in Sep 09, up from a year ago (45% or 25,300) (pg. 4).
This means that the older you are, the harder it is to get a job.
In fact, the number of mature resident job seekers increased by 15,700, or 62 per cent, compared to a year ago.
About 1 in 5 (21.9%) of the unemployed were degree holders, and about one-third of them (6,300 out of 18,400) were age 40 and over.
The share of PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians) among workers made redundant rose from 43% in Q2 09 to 51% in Q3 09, overtaking production & related workers (34%) and clerical, sales & service workers (15%) as the leading occupational group among redundant workers (pg. 9).
What this may suggest, is that the call to re-train and upgrade skills and education, may not have worked very well, from the perspective of those who upgrade to become PMETs, as their redundancy rate is now the highest, overtaking “production & related workers (34%) and clerical, sales & service workers (15%) as the leading occupational group among redundant workers”.
Slightly over one in three of the residents made redundant were in their 30s (34%) or degree holders (36%), disproportionately higher than their representation in the workforce (26% and 27% respectively) (pg. 9).
So, the more educated you are, the higher was the chance of being made redundant.
This is in spite of the data that
PMETs made up the largest share of vacancies (15,400 or 44%) in Sep 09, followed by production & transport operators, cleaners & labourers (9,900 or 29%) and clerical, sales & service workers (9,500 or 27%) (pg. 14).
So, although jobs available (vacancies) was the highest for PMETs, they had the highest redundancy rate and the largest increase in the unemployment rate.
The re-employment rate, that is those who were re-employed within six months of retrenchment, was the lowest, at 37.3 %, for those age 50 and over, and was also the lowest, at 44.4 % for degree holders.
Labour productivity fell over the year by 0.7% in Q3 09, and nominal earnings decreased over the year by 3.0% in Q3 09, its third consecutive quarter of decline (Q2 09: -2.2% and Q1 09: -3.7%). After adjusting for negative inflation in Q3 09 (-0.4%), the decline in real earnings was 2.6%, deeper than the contraction in the preceding quarter (-1.8%) (pg. 18).
So, earnings continue to fall, whilst HDB property taxes have risen, HDB new flat prices have risen, school bus fees have risen, etc.
Actually, real earnings have fallen for six consecutive quarters by a cumulative – 17.9%, reversing almost all the gains in earnings for the last three years or so, to where earning levels were in the first quarter of 2007.
According to the MOM’s Workforce 2009 report released last month, the unemployment rate for cleaners, labourers and related workers was the highest across all sectors in June 2009 at 8.3 per cent.
In this connection, we have been told time and again, that Singaporeans do not want such jobs. Thus, the need for foreign workers for these jobs. If this is indeed the case, then why is it that the unemployment rate was the highest for this category?
What this may mean, is that even those who want to and were working as cleaners and labourers, have lost their jobs, and are unable to find a similar job, because younger foreign workers have generally replaced them in the food-courts and the airport toilets.
According to my calculations using data from the Department of Statistics’ Household Expenditure Survey Report (HES) released on 2 December, the bottom 20% of households’ income declined by 0.3% in nominal terms from 1998 to 2008, and the 21st to 40th quintile households’ income increased by only 0.9% in real terms (2.3% increase per annum minus 1.4% inflation per annum).
Marrying the latest MOM Labour Market report which has data until September, with the HES which has data until 2008, we can surmise that about 40% of households may hardly have had any real increase in income, over the last 10 years or so.
Related posts:
- PMETs and degree holders among hardest hit by weak labour market
- Low-wage workers better off, now everybody worse off?
- Fastest growing economy – what about jobs and wages? (Part 2)
- 10 important – and worrying – statistics of 2008
- 5 Minutes with… Leong Sze Hian on the economy and jobs
“about 40% of households may hardly have had any real increase in income, over the last 10 years or so”.
HDB prices, transport costs, utility charges, conservation charges, school bus fares, university tuition fees, have been increased annually. It is small wonder that Singapore population is poorer year by year.
But I guess that the ministers do not care as long as they get their annual fix of
six figure increment.
Mr Leong: applaud your dogged persistence in digging for the information, admire your analytical ability with the numbers, appreciate your time and effort in making sense of them.
The data you have kindly consolidated here makes me wonder, even more, if we are moving in a direction opposite to that of countries like China and India; where native PMET’s are increasing in these countries, both as their managerial and R&D quality improve and returnees from the states and elsewhere increase, ours are apparently decreasing.
100,300 unemployed in Sep 09 may just be a statistics to our ministers. But have they considered what the unemployed is suffering and going through?
According to New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults in Dec 09, unemployed suffers from:
- depression or anxiety
- observe behavioral changes in children that is attributed to parents’ difficulties in finding work
- insomia and panic attacks
- feeling embarassed or ashamed most of the time as a result of being out of work; borrow money from friends and relatives
Unemployed experienced major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.
Can our ministers show more empathy to the unemployed rather than concern on keeping up with the salaries of the top earners in the private sector?
Worst is yet to come if we still fail to foresee our mistake in our economics policy.
100,300 unemployed in Sep 09
hey man, this is damn serious problem here, wonder what those ministers are going to do now, or as usual wait for their master to give instructions?
they just cannot be bother with orang asli singapura
As long as KPI for our millionaire ministers are based on GDP growth and salary pegged to the highest earners (mind you not necessarily local), then do u really think they will give 2 hoots to the labour report. As long as GDP gets better and rich get richer, the rest is not their concern. The only thing they fear is elections, give them big mandate they squeeze u more.
Its not whether they care or not.. its a fact that all 3.5 million of us can be replaced with the communists north of us. After all there are 1 Billion of them.
We are insignificant.
http://www.aneki.com/richest.html
Bad, worse, worst.
If we’re bad during this global financial meltdown no wonder those below us are crying out loud for help. The Italian PM felt it.
Thank you PAP for making up amongst the world’s top 10 even when we’re just a resourceless, hinterlanless, tiny island.
Thanks MM.
Hey Carlos,
1. Minister’s pay is linked to GDP,
2. ———->> GDP is not pegged to your pay,
3. ——————>> Minister makes GDP of Singapore very high,
4. ——————————–>> You thank and praise him for it.
Kirk to Spock: “IT MUST NOT EVEN COMPUTE FOR YOU!”
I first came into the job market in 1999. That’s just after the financial crisis. If you think things are tough now, you should have seen what it was like back then. At least there are still people hiring now, in certain sectors. Back then, hardly anyone was!
So relax fellas, we’ve been through this before, and we’ll survive.
Another thing – when do uni grads start looking for a job? Is it from June onwards? Perhaps this would account for the increase amongst uni grads?
And as for PMETs? Has it escape everybody’s mind that the ‘Great Recession’ hit the finance sector the hardest? When the great big financial bubble burst, of course those employed in this sector will be the hardest hit. Yep, that’s right, the PMETs.