Resident unemployment ticks up to 4.5%; over 25,000 new vacancies: MOM

THE seasonally-adjusted resident unemployment rate ticked up by 0.4 percentage point to 4.5 per cent in August, slightly higher than the 0.3 percentage point increase for July, according to the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) eighth weekly jobs situation report released on Wednesday. (see amendment note)

This is despite economic support measures which the Monetary Authority of Singapore estimates could cushion the rise in resident unemployment rate by about 1.7 per cent this year, saving around 155,000 jobs.

At the same time, some 25,500 job and training vacancies were newly made available in August under the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, overseen by the National Jobs Council. This means the council has now identified 117,500 jobs and training opportunities in both public and private sectors, exceeding its initial target of 100,000.

Of the job and training places created to date, about seven in 10 are openings for jobs, whether full-time or part-time. A higher proportion of these job openings (73 per cent, an increase from last month's 68 per cent) are now for long-term as opposed to short-term positions.

The strongest demand comes from the information and communications sector, where nearly 20,000 opportunities have been identified, followed by healthcare, professional services, finance and insurance, and manufacturing.

To date, over 33,000 jobseekers have been placed into these opportunities, of which 9,000 were matched in August. But this leaves most of the vacancies - in the tens of thousands - still unfilled.

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"The focus now must be to try and get as many of those vacancies filled as possible," said Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo. She urged employers to "keep an open mind" in their hiring processes and to consider candidates with transferable skills, where government funding could help bridge any skills gaps.

Jobseekers should likewise be open-minded and willing to enter roles and sectors they are less familiar with, Mrs Teo added. She encouraged jobseekers to seek help early, and to draw on career-matching services by Workforce Singapore and e2i, both online and offline, via the various career centres across Singapore.

Noting the uptick in resident unemployment, Mrs Teo said the government would continue to monitor the situation carefully, while helping employers bring forward their hiring plans through the co-payment of wages.

On top of existing wage support schemes, the government also recently introduced a jobs growth incentive scheme, which provides funding support for new hires. The scheme was launched in September, and would take time for its impact to be felt, she added.

Amendment note: An earlier headline of this article stated that resident unemployment rose 0.4 per cent. It was in fact up 0.4 percentage point.