Singapore jobless hits 4.8$ amid economic weakness

Singapore jobless hits 4.8$ amid economic weakness

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Singapore's jobless rate is escalating, and the number of
long-term unemployed has hit a record high, the government said
Friday as continuing economic weakness saw the labour market
shrink for a fifth consecutive quarter.

Unemployment had jumped to 4.8 percent by the end of
September, up from 4.1 percent in July, and "is expected to
remain high" to the end of the year, the manpower ministry said
in its third-quarter labour market report.

"Without sustained momentum of economic recovery," hopes for
an improvement on the job front have faded, it said.

An Economic Development Board survey of the manufacturing
sector, which contributes about a quarter of the export-reliant
nation's gross domestic product, was equally pessimistic.

"Manufacturers expect a weaker business outlook... this is due
mainly to the global economic uncertainties, as well as the
conflict between the U.S. and Iraq," it said.

Although the lower educated continued to bear the brunt of
Singapore's economic downturn, the number of white-collar workers
caught in the escalating lay-off spiral is rising.

"As layoffs increasingly hit mid-career professionals,
managers and executives, the employment prospects for degree
holders have worsened considerably," the manpower ministry report
said.

The jobless rate in Singapore is at a 15-year high, overtaking
the 4.3 percent registered in 1998 at the height of the Asian
financial crisis, and second only to the 6.0 percent hit during
the mid-80s recession.

An estimated 33 percent of the unemployed at the end of
September had been looking for work for at least six months, up
from 25 percent a year ago.

"The long-term unemployed rate among residents increased over
the same period from 0.8 percent to 1.4 percent, a record high
for September periods since the start of the data series in
1991," the ministry said.

Although there were signs of an improvement in the labor
market in the second quarter, this was not sustained, with the
economy contracting 10.1 percent on an annualized basis in the
following three months.

In the third-quarter, employment shrank by 14,792 jobs which
the ministry blamed mainly on continuing cutbacks in
construction.

There were also 4,187 retrenchments, nearly 60 percent of them
in manufacturing, despite the National Wages Council
recommendation that salaries be cut or frozen to limit the number
of lay offs.

In September, there were just 31 job openings for every 100
job seekers, down from 37 per 100 in June, and far below the 200
openings for every 100 job seekers before the 1997-98 crisis.

A glimmer of hope in the pessimistic figures was the healthy
6.4 percent growth in productivity in the third-quarter compared
to the same period last year, although the ministry said it
remains to bee seen if this is sustainable.

The Singapore economy emerged in July from a year-long
recession -- its deepest in nearly four decades -- but the
recovery has been weak forcing the government last month to cut
its growth forecast for the year by about a third to 2.0-2.5
percent.