The Statistics and Census Service released the results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the third quarter of 2008. The survey coverage comprised the Manufacturing; Hotels & Restaurants; Financial and Electricity, Gas & Water Supply sectors, but excluded own-account workers, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies. The survey results were extrapolated according to the information collected from 582 statistical units successfully interviewed. At the end of the third quarter of 2008, the Manufacturing sector had 23,916 paid employees, down by 14.5% year-on-year, with 15,331 working in Manufacture of Wearing Apparel. In September 2008, the average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) for full-time employees in this sector amounted to MOP5,374, representing a year-on-year increase of 8.0%. Sewing machine operators earned MOP3,802 in average. Hotels & Restaurants took on 49,514 paid employees, up by 16.4% over the third quarter of 2007, with 32,640 working in hotels. In September 2008, the average earnings for full-time employees in this sector increased by 10.8% year-on-year to MOP10,101, with Housekeeping employees earning an average of MOP5,619. The Financial sector had 5,645 paid employees, up by 10.1% compared with the third quarter of 2007, with 4,832 working in banks. The average earnings for full-time employees in September 2008 went up by 12.4% year-on-year to MOP17,451 and that of Bank tellers was MOP9,914. Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 1,057 paid employees, down slightly by 0.2% year-on-year. The average earnings for full-time employees in September 2008 went up by 6.5% year-on-year to MOP22,129. As regards number of job vacancies at the end of September 2008, the four sectors reported significant year-on-year decreases. The Manufacturing sector reported to have 1,822 vacancies (-39.4%); Hotels & Restaurants had 4,020 (-46.6%); the Financial sector had 179 (-25.4%) and Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 11 (-62.1%). In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 73.1% of the vacant posts in the Manufacturing sector required working experience, 99.4% of the vacancies in the Financial sector and 81.8% of that in Electricity, Gas & Water Supply required senior secondary education or higher. Besides Cantonese, Mandarin (44.4%) and English (34.6%) were the more preferable language skills for Hotels & Restaurants; furthermore, 81.1% of the job vacancies in the Financial sector required knowledge of English.
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