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.