The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the third quarter of 2021. Survey coverage for this quarter comprises Manufacturing; Electricity, Gas & Water Supply; Hotels; Restaurants; Child-care and Elderly Care. As affected by the pandemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia, the average earnings of full-time employees in September last year were notably dragged down as a number of employees in some industries were placed on unpaid leave. Due to the low base of comparison, the average earnings in September this year generally increased.
At the end of the third quarter of 2021, Hotels had 48,341 full-time employees, down by 10.1% year-on-year; average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees in September this year rose by 10.9% year-on-year to MOP18,500.
Restaurants had 23,527 full-time employees, a decrease of 6.1% year-on-year; their average earnings rose by 7.8% to MOP9,810.
Manufacturing had 8,448 full-time employees, down by 7.7% year-on-year; average earnings in September increased by 11.8% to MOP11,930. Meanwhile, number of full-time employees in Electricity, Gas & Water Supply edged down by 0.1% year-on-year to 1,111, with their average earnings dropping by 1.1% to MOP31,680.
Child-care had 1,538 full-time employees, up by 0.9% year-on-year; their average earnings in September fell by 1.5% to MOP16,090. Number of full-time employees in Elderly Care grew by 8.4% year-on-year to 1,192, and their average earnings went up by 1.6% to MOP15,770.
At the end of the third quarter, job vacancies in Restaurants (1,153) and Hotels (765) increased by 150 and 229 respectively year-on-year. Meanwhile, 81.8% and 51.5% of the vacancies in Hotels required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively.
The job vacancy rate (1.6%) and the employee recruitment rate (4.3%) of Hotels rose by 0.6 and 3.3 percentage points respectively year-on-year in the third quarter. As for Restaurants, the job vacancy rate (4.7%) and the employee recruitment rate (4.8%) increased by 0.8 and 0.3 percentage points respectively. The figures implied that some of the vacancies in these two industries had been filled.
During the third quarter, a total of 374,654 employee participants from the surveyed industries attended training courses provided by the establishment (including courses organised by the establishment or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the establishment), an increase of 12.5% year-on-year. Hotels had 369,553 participants in vocational training, with most of them taking Services courses (44.9%), followed by Business & Administration courses (42.5%); the vast majority of the participants attended courses during office hours. Besides, the course fees of over 90% of the participants from Hotels, Electricity, Gas & Water Supply and Elderly Care were paid by the establishments.