The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth 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 fourth quarter of 2018, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 62,537 persons engaged, up by 8.5% year-on-year, with 39,362 working in Retail Trade. In December 2018, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 5.3% year-on-year to MOP14,200.
Transport, Storage & Communications had 12,182 persons engaged, up by 7.2% year-on-year, as new passenger transport operators came into service after the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Average earnings of full-time employees rose by 1.4% year-on-year to MOP21,780 in December.
Security Activities had 12,017 persons engaged, up by 10.6% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December fell slightly by 0.5% year-on-year to MOP13,190.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 878 persons engaged, up by 1.9% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December increased by 0.7% year-on-year to MOP18,250.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2018, job vacancies in Security Activities (1,525) and in Retail Trade (3,034) went up by 502 and 253 respectively year-on-year, while those in Wholesale Trade (573) fell by 333.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most vacancies in Security Activities (83.0%), Wholesale & Retail Trade (54.1%) and Transport, Storage & Communications (51.5%) required only junior secondary education or lower. As for language skills, 54.0% of the vacancies in Security Activities required knowledge of English, while 54.4% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities required knowledge of Mandarin; meanwhile, 78.7% and 53.1% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively.
The employee turnover rate (6.2%) in Retail Trade rose by 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, while the recruitment rate (5.0%) fell by 1.3 percentage points, indicating a decrease in demand for manpower in this industry. In addition, the recruitment rate (6.9%) in Transport, Storage & Communications grew by 2.2 percentage points year-on-year, while the vacancy rate (5.1%) and the turnover rate (3.4%) dropped by 0.7 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points respectively, showing that some of the vacancies in this sector have been filled.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 20,994 participants attended 1,062 training courses provided by the establishments in the fourth quarter of 2018 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 66.7% of the establishments in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities and 59.3% of those in Security Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Security Activities had the largest number of participants, with 9,010 participants attending a total of 166 training courses. Analysed by course type, most of the participants in Security Activities took courses in “Business & administration” (76.2%) and “Services” (15.1%). Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90% of the participants in the surveyed industries, except for Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, were paid by the establishments.