The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the second quarter of 2019. 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 2019, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 63,502 persons engaged, up by 3.6% year-on-year, with 41,106 working in Retail Trade. In June 2019, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 4.3% year-on-year to MOP13,940.
With road passenger transport operators continually extending their services following the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Light Rapid Transit coming into operation soon, number of persons engaged in Transport, Storage & Communications increased by 25.0% year-on-year to 14,060. Average earnings of full-time employees rose by 6.4% year-on-year to MOP22,620 in June.
Security Activities had 12,337 persons engaged, up by 7.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June rose by 1.8% year-on-year to MOP13,040.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 904 persons engaged, up by 4.9% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June increased by 1.8% year-on-year to MOP18,760.
At the end of the second quarter of 2019, job vacancies in Retail Trade (3,038) and in Security Activities (1,256) went up by 594 and 126 respectively year-on-year, while those in Wholesale Trade (849) fell by 290.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most vacancies in Security Activities (80.8%) and in Wholesale & Retail Trade (43.6%) required only junior secondary education or lower, while 34.5% of those in Transport, Storage & Communications required tertiary education. As for language skills, 57.7% of the vacancies in Security Activities required knowledge of English, while 43.5% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities required knowledge of Mandarin; meanwhile, 79.1% and 48.1% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively.
The job vacancy rate (8.3%), the employee turnover rate (7.3%) and the recruitment rate (7.7%) in Retail trade rose by 0.6, 2.5 and 1.9 percentage points respectively year-on-year, indicating there were still many vacant posts to be filled in the industry. Besides, the recruitment rate (5.3%) and the vacancy rate (5.1%) in Transport, Storage & Communications fell by 2.6 and 1.3 percentage points respectively year-on-year, implying that the manpower resources of the sector were relatively stable.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 24,522 participants attended 1,211 training courses provided by the establishments in the second quarter of 2019 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 54.5% of the establishments in Security Activities and 50.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Wholesale & Retail Trade had the largest number of participants, with 11,306 participants attending a total of 777 training courses. Analysed by course type, most of the participants in Wholesale & Retail Trade took courses in “Business & administration” (72.2%) and “Services” (6.3%). Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90% of the participants in the surveyed industries, except for Transport, Storage & Communications, were paid by the establishments.