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SINGAPORE: Singapore posted its steepest drop in total employment in more than two decades in 2020, with non-residents accounting for all of the decline in employment, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said on Tuesday (March 16).
Total employment, excluding foreign domestic workers, contracted by 166,600 last year, according to the 2020 Labor Market Report released Tuesday. The number of employed non-residents fell by 181,500 last year.
Residents – Singaporeans and permanent residents – employment grew by 14,900 and recovered to “levels slightly above pre-COVID levels” as a result of improvements in the second half of the year.
Resident employment trends were mixed across different sectors, with the largest contractions in the tourism and aviation-related sectors, which were severely affected by travel restrictions and safe distancing measures. Resident employment grew in some industries, including public administration and education, health and social services, as well as financial and insurance services.
Nonresident employment declined in all sectors, with the bulk in construction and manufacturing. The decline was mainly driven by holders of work permits and other work passes, the MOM said, with a decrease of 138,800. This was followed by a drop of 26,000 S pass holders and 16,700 employment pass holders.
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Annual change in employment, excluding foreign domestic workers, by residential situation. (Graphic: MOM)
The overall unemployment rate increased from 2.3% in 2019 to 3% in 2020. Resident unemployment also increased from 3.1% in 2019 to 4.1% in 2020, while citizen unemployment increased from 3, 3% in 2019 to 4.2% in 2020.
Although average annual unemployment rates increased in 2020 compared to 2019, they did not exceed the levels recorded during the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2009. In the last two months of 2020, monthly unemployment rates had started to fall, said MOM.
INCREASE RETURNS
The number of layoffs for all of 2020, with 26,110 workers, was more than double that of 2019, when there were 10,690 layoffs.
But the incidence of layoffs in 2020, of 12.8 layoffs per 1,000 employees, was lower than in recent recession years, which averaged 22.5% layoffs per 1,000 employees. This is after accounting for increases in the size of the workforce over the years.
The firing rate for resident workers was 11.1 per 1,000 resident employees, while the firing rate for non-residents was 15.7 per 1,000 non-resident employees.
Overall, the reentry rate among residents laid off in 2020 was 62 percent, slightly lower than 64 percent in 2019, although there was an improvement in the last quarter of the year, MOM said.
The number of seasonally adjusted vacancies increased to 56,500 in December 2020, a maximum last seen in March 2019.
“This partly reflects the government’s supportive measures to encourage hiring,” MOM said.
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Singapore’s economy is expected to see a gradual recovery throughout the year, although the pace of recovery is likely “to be uneven across sectors,” he added.
“Labor market conditions remain uncertain, although we have started 2021 on a firmer footing than in 2020,” said MOM. “The recovery of the labor market can be gradual and uneven in all sectors.”
