THE actual number of retrenched in 2017 will be less than the high of about 19,500 in 2016, said NTUC assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay in a Facebook post on Friday.

He was responding to the preliminary labour market figures released by the Ministry of Manpower on Friday, which showed the jobless rate and retrenchments had fallen in the second quarter of 2017.

But total employment continued to decline, largely reflecting a decrease in work permit holders in construction and marine.

Mr Tay said that "we will still see pockets of layoffs due to disruption, reorganisation and consolidation".

He called on employers to embrace digitalisation and technology and to focus on "up-skilling, re-skilling and second-skilling all their employees".