Singapore’s overall unemployment rate in August climbs past global financial crisis’ high
08 October, 2020
Overall unemployment rate climbed to 3.4% in August, and it “remains to be seen” if it'll rise quicker in the coming months, said the Manpower Ministry.
Singapore’s overall unemployment rate rose to 3.4 per cent in August, climbing at night most of 3.3 per cent recorded in September 2009 through the global financial crisis.
But August's rate is leaner than the highest overall unemployment rate of 6.4 %, recorded in September 2003 during the SARS outbreak.
The most recent jobs situation report from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Wednesday (Oct 7) showed the entire unemployment rate for August climbed 0.4 percentage points from July.
MOM said it has began to track the unemployment rate monthly to “monitor the labour situation more closely”. Unemployment rates usually are released on a quarterly basis.
The citizen unemployment rate rose to 4.6 % in August, up by 0.3 percentage points from July. It really is less than the 4.9 % recorded in September 2009.
The resident unemployment rate - of citizens and long lasting residents - rose to 4.5 % in August from 4.1 % in July, but remained less than the 4.9 % recorded in September 2009.
“We discover that while monthly unemployment rates have up to now generally remained lower than past recessionary highs, it's been slowly but surely rising,” said the ministry in a press release.
“It remains to be observed if unemployment will rise quicker in the coming months,” it added.
“We cannot tell at this time with time, whether in the coming months the unemployment rate will uptick at a faster rate or does it stay around a comparable,” said Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo.
Talking with reporters on a visit to construction company Samwoh Group on Wednesday, she added: “But yet we're keeping an extremely close watch.”
Regardless of the “slight uptick” in the unemployment rate, jobs remain available in this same period, she noted.
“We also saw the opportunity to pull together more opportunities. And almost all these opportunities that contain been pulled together remain, still, with regards to jobs. And of the 60,000 roughly long-term jobs available, a big part of it really is still from the private sector.”
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, who was also at the visit to Samwoh, said it is not an easy journey for folks who have lost their jobs.
"But I’m glad to see that spirit of resilience where they keep trying. And there’s a whole lot of companies that are also successful trying at how they are able to grow,” he said.
“There are growth sectors in Singapore. COVID will probably reshape the economy, reshape the labour market quite significantly. But if we are able to build the proper skills and build the right career ladder, I believe we can emerge stronger from this.”
Urging job hunters “not to quit”, he added: “There are new opportunities. If we change our minds about what are good jobs and become ready to undergo training, and become prepared to persevere and continue steadily to look for good opportunities, I think you will have jobs that are coming out.”
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) estimates that the combined Budgets will prevent Singapore’s economy from contracting by an additional 5.6 % of GDP in 2020, and 4.8 % in 2021, said MOM in its report.
“Our monetary support measures may also offset a number of the rise in resident unemployment rate by about 1.7 % this season,” the ministry added.
“This could mean about 155,000 jobs saved of these 2 yrs, although we will still see job losses overall.”
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
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