According to the results of the Employment Survey released by the Statistics and Census Service, the unemployment rate for May-July 2008 rose slightly by 0.1 percentage point over the previous period (April-June 2008) to 2.9% due to the rising number of job-seekers in the Summer Holiday, but dropped by 0.2 percentage point year-on-year. The underemployment rate remained unchanged from the previous period, at 1.6%, but up by 0.5 percentage point year-on-year. Total labour force was 334,000 in May-July 2008; the labour force participation rate stood at 70.7%, up by 0.2 and 1.2 percentage points respectively from the previous period and the corresponding period of 2007. The employed population rose by 2,700 over the previous period to 324,000, with increases in the number of persons working in the Construction sector and Retail Trade, but decrease in the Manufacturing sector. The unemployed population was 9,800, an increase of 700 from the previous period, with 1,300 (12.9% of the total) searching for their first job, up by 6.7 percentage points over the previous period.
