Proportion of profitable firms falls in 2016: MOM

THE proportion of profitable firms declined from 79 per cent in 2015 to 76 per cent in 2016. As most of the firms had also put in place a wage system that gave the flexibility to adjust wages according to business conditions, wage increase continued to moderate.

The proportion of employees who received total wage increases also declined from 77 per cent in 2015 to 75 per cent in 2016.

These were the findings from the Report on Wage Practices 2016 released by the Manpower Research and Statistics Department of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Tuesday.

The decline in profitable firms was observed across major industries.

Correspondingly, the proportion of establishments which did not do as well as the previous year (38 per cent in 2015, compared with 41 per cent in 2016) or incurred losses (21 per cent in 2015, 24 per cent in 2016) also rose.