The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the second quarter of 2021. Survey coverage comprises Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities; however, the self-employed are excluded. As affected by the pandemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia, average earnings of full-time employees in June last year were notably dragged down as a relatively large number of employees in some industries were on unpaid leave. Due to the low base of comparison, average earnings in June this year generally increased.
At the end of the second quarter of 2021, number of persons engaged in Wholesale & Retail Trade decreased by 2.2% year-on-year to 63,238. Among them, 39,375 were working in Retail Trade, down by 2.0%. In June 2021, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees were MOP14,490, up by 7.7% compared to December 2020 and by 17.9% year-on-year.
The Transport, Storage & Communications sector had 13,746 persons engaged, an increase of 3.6% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees rose by 5.1% year-on-year to MOP21,050 in June.
Security Activities had 13,282 persons engaged, down by 1.8% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June went up by 3.8% year-on-year to MOP12,890.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 938 persons engaged, an increase of 1.3% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June grew by 3.2% year-on-year to MOP19,040.
Job vacancies in Retail Trade (1,765), Security Activities (1,302) and the Transport, Storage & Communications sector (1,085) increased by 252, 272 and 407 respectively year-on-year.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most of the vacancies in Security Activities (96.9%) and in Wholesale & Retail Trade (46.1%) required only junior secondary education or lower, while 17.7% of the vacancies in the Transport, Storage & Communications sector required tertiary education. As regards language skills, 69.9% and 53.7% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively, while the corresponding proportions for Security Activities were 62.0% and 33.1%.
The employee recruitment rate (5.3%) and the job vacancy rate (5.1%) in Retail Trade grew by 1.9 and 0.8 percentage points respectively year-on-year. As for the Transport, Storage & Communications sector, the employee recruitment rate (4.2%) and the job vacancy rate (8.0%) showed respective increases of 1.1 and 2.9 percentage points year-on-year. The figures implied that the demand for manpower in these two sectors was relatively stable.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 35,423 participants attended 1,440 training courses provided by the establishments in the second quarter of 2021 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 55.9% of the establishments in Security Activities and 50.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Security Activities had the largest number of participants, with 17,324 participants attending a total of 207 training courses. Analysed by course type, the majority of the participants in Security Activities took courses in “Business & administration” (49.1%), followed by courses in “Services” (20.8%). Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90.0% of the participants in the Transport, Storage & Communications sector and Security Activities were paid by the establishments.