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The growth was entirely attributed to non-resident employment, while resident employment declined marginally.
Maintaining its trend of continued economic growth, employment in Singapore expanded faster in the second quarter of 2024 (11,300) compared to Q1 2024 (4,700).
Breaking this down, the increase was entirely attributed to non-residents (12,000), while resident employment declined marginally by 600. In the first half of 2024, total employment saw a growth of 16,000, with resident and non-resident employment growing by 4,900 and 11,200 respectively.
Despite resident employment recording growth in financial & insurance services, information & communications, and professional services, there were were seasonal declines in retail trade and administrative & support services — this was due to firms releasing workers who were hired in earlier months. Together, this has resulted in a marginal decline in resident employment in the second quarter of 2024.
On the other hand, non-resident employment improved in Q2 2024 (12,000), driven by the growth of Work Permit Holders working in low skilled jobs in construction and manufacturing.
While S Pass holders saw negative growth in Q2 2024, this was still a smaller decline compared to Q1 2024.
Meanwhile, the number of EP holders as a whole declined, yet employment trends varied across sectors:
- Administrative & support services and wholesale trade saw the number of EP holders increase
- Information & communications, professional services and financial & insurance services saw declines following the post-pandemic surge in hiring.
According to the report, this growth in resident employment is expected to moderate given Singapore’s high labour force participation rate and slowing resident workforce growth.
Unemployment rates decline on a monthly basis
Unemployment rates improved in June 2024:
- Overall: 2.0%
- Resident: 2.7%
- Citizen: 2.8%
For a better comparison, March 2024 recorded:
- Overall: 2.1%
- Resident: 3.0%
- Citizen: 3.1%
Resident unemployment rates in June 2024 have either remained unchanged or declined from March 2024 across most age and education groups. The resident long-term unemployment rate stayed well within the range observed over two decades, and remained at 0.8% in June 2024, unchanged from March.
In spite of a slight increase from the previous quarter, the number of retrenchments remained low in Q2 2024 (Q1 2024: 3,030; Q2 2024: 3,270). More specifically, retrenchments rose in financial & insurance services and wholesale trade. That being said, the number of retrenchments in these sectors remained within the range observed during non-recessionary periods.
Across the economy, firms largely cited business re-organisation or restructuring in 2Q 2024 as the reason for retrenchment. On a more positive note, retrenchments due to concerns of recession or downturn in the sector have declined.
As a whole, the incidence of retrenchment in Q2 2024 rose to 1.4 retrenched per 1,000 employees from 1.3 retrenched per 1,000 employees in Q1 2024, though still remained lower than the pre-pandemic levels (quarterly average for 2015 to 2019: 1.7)
Following a growth the previous quarter from 79,800 in December 2023 to 81,900 in March 2024, job vacancies held steady in June 2024 (81,200). Job vacancies in growth sectors - which are associated with higher productivity and pay - made up over one in five job vacancies. This includes:
- Information & communications,
- Professional services
- Financial & insurance service
Other highlights:
- The number of workers placed on short work-week or temporary layoff continued to decline to 460 in Q2 2024 (Q1 2024: 620).
- The re-entry rate for retrenched residents (six months post-retrenchment) declined from 59.4% in Q1 2024 to 55.0% in Q2 2024.
NTUC's Assistant Secretary-General Desmond Choo commented on the findings in a Facebook post: "Our labour market continues to show resilience and strong momentum, with the number of job vacancies holding steady at 81,200 as at June 2024. This translates to 1.67 job vacancies per unemployed person, which is higher than 1.56 in March 2024."
He cited this as "great news" given the positive momentum seen in key sectors such as financial & insurance services and professional services. "With overall unemployment rates declining to 2% as of June 2024, our efforts to secure stable, quality jobs for our workforce are paying off", he added.
Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay also shared his thoughts, highlighting the decline of the overall number of EP holders and (SP) holders in 2Q : "I am heartened that this trend is in line with NTUC’s advocacy to level the playing field for residents, in particular our PMEs, amidst an evolving labour force.
"From the Joint NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce in 2021, which I co-chaired, one key recommendation was to strengthen the Singaporean core by boosting PMEs employability through enhancing MOM’s EP application review process and facilitating skills transfer from foreign talent to local PMEs."
Lead image / Ministry of Manpower
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