The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth quarter of 2011. Survey coverage comprised the Gaming sector; Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications sector; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, excluding own-account workers and junket promoters & junket associates. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2011, the Gaming sector had 50,198 employees, up by 12.0% year-on-year, of which 22,345 were dealers, an increase of 16.7%. In December 2011, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees rose by 6.5% year-on-year to MOP 16,720, with dealers earning MOP 14,700 in average. Wholesale & Retail Trade had 32,956 paid employees, up by 7.1% year-on-year, with 20,339 working in Retail trade. In December 2011, average earnings of full-time employees rose by 2.4% year-on-year to MOP10,170, with Sales representatives and Salespersons earning MOP12,560 and MOP9,530 respectively in average. The Transport, Storage & Communications sector took on 8,112 paid employees, up by 10.5% year-on-year, attributable to the substantial increase in Land Transport employees upon the commencement of new bus service model in August. In December, average earnings of full-time employees increased by 8.7% year-on-year to MOP16,230. Drivers of passenger/cargo transport by land earned an average of MOP17,430. Security Activities had 4,779 paid employees, up slightly by 0.9% year-on-year. The average earnings of full-time employees in December rose by 5.3% year-on-year to MOP8,360, with Security guards earning MOP8,060 in average. Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 663 paid employees, up by 2.0% year-on-year. The average earnings of full-time employees in December increased by 8.6% year-on-year to MOP11,920. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2011, number of vacancies in the Gaming sector reached 2,274 (1,504 for dealers); besides, vacancies in Retail trade went up drastically by 43.0% to 2,913. In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 67.1% of the vacancies in the Gaming sector and 60.3% of those in Wholesale & Retail Trade required working experience. As regards educational attainment, 71.2% of the vacancies in the Gaming sector and 60.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities required senior secondary education or higher, while 78.8% of the vacancies in Security Activities and 56.7% of those in Wholesale & Retail Trade required junior secondary education or lower. Besides Cantonese, Mandarin and English were the more preferable language skills for the vacancies in Wholesale & Retail Trade at 65.9% and 43.4% respectively; for those in the Gaming sector, 92.0% required knowledge of Mandarin and 71.9% required English. In the fourth quarter of 2011, employee turnover rate of all the surveyed industries registered year-on-year increase, indicating the conditions of high staff turnover and labour shortage have not yet improved. Among them, Security Activities had the most rapid turnover of employees, with the highest vacancy rate, employee turnover rate and recruitment rate of 15.1%, 12.8% and 12.3% respectively.
