The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the second quarter of 2018. Survey coverage comprises Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities; however, own-account workers are excluded.
At the end of the second quarter of 2018, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 61,288 persons engaged, up by 2.2% year-on-year, with 37,886 working in Retail Trade. In June 2018, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 2.5% year-on-year to MOP13,370.
Transport, Storage & Communications had 11,251 persons engaged, down by 2.5% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees increased by 3.9% year-on-year to MOP21,260 in June.
Security Activities had 11,513 persons engaged, up by 7.0% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June fell by 1.2% year-on-year to MOP12,810.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 862 persons engaged, down by 0.5% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June increased by 1.5% year-on-year to MOP18,420.
At the end of the second quarter of 2018, job vacancies in Retail Trade (2,444) went up by 387 year-on-year, while those in Transport, Storage & Communications (714) and Wholesale Trade (1,139) fell by 62 and 40 respectively.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most vacancies in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities (88.0%), Transport, Storage & Communications (45.3%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (41.1%) required only junior secondary education or lower. As for language skills, 80.1% and 49.3% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively; the corresponding proportions in Security Activities were 41.3% and 66.3% respectively.
In the second quarter of 2018, the vacancy rate (7.7%) in Retail Trade rose by 1.4 percentage points year-on-year, while the turnover rate (4.8%) fell by 1.5 percentage points, suggesting an increase in demand for manpower in this sector. In addition, the vacancy rate (6.4%) and the turnover rate (5.0%) in Transport, Storage & Communications dropped by 0.4 and 0.2 percentage points respectively year-on-year, while the recruitment rate (7.9%) rose by 2.9 percentage points, indicating that some of the vacancies in this sector have already been filled.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 14,409 participants attended 1,347 training courses provided by the establishments in the second quarter of 2018 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 51.0% of the establishments in Security Activities and 25.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Wholesale & Retail Trade had the largest number of participants, with 8,151 participants attending a total of 1,000 training courses. Analysed by course type, 47.8% of the participants from Security Activities and 38.0% of those from Wholesale & Retail Trade attended “Business & Administration” courses. With respect to course fee, the course fees of over 80% of the participants in the surveyed industries, except for Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, were paid by the establishments.