Results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the 4th Quarter 2008

The Statistics and Census Service released the results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth quarter of 2008. The survey covered Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, but excluded own-account workers. The survey results were extrapolated according to the information collected from 893 statistical units successfully interviewed. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2008, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 26,012 paid employees, up by 8.0% year-on-year, with 15,665 working in Retail trade. In December 2008, the average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) for full-time employees amounted to MOP8,603, up by 6.9% year-on-year, with the average earnings of Sales representatives and Salespersons amounting to MOP10,037 and MOP7,505 respectively. Transport, Storage & Communications took on 7,816 paid employees, up by 6.4% over the fourth quarter of 2007. In December 2008, the average earnings for full-time employees increased by 5.2% year-on-year to MOP14,925. Drivers of Passenger/cargo transport by land earned an average of MOP12,930. Security Activities had 3,910 paid employees, up by 5.6% over the fourth quarter of 2007. The average earnings for full-time employees in December 2008 rose by 17.6% year-on-year to MOP7,482, with Security guards earning MOP 7,110 in average. Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 658 paid employees, up by 6.1% compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. The average earnings for full-time employees in December 2008 increased by 2.4% year-on-year to MOP11,243. At the end of December 2008, Wholesale & Retail Trade reported to have 1,728 vacancies, Transport, Storage & Communications and Security Activities had 313 and 476 vacancies, down significantly by 57.6%, 72.6% and 32.7% respectively. In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 57.6% of the vacancies in Wholesale & Retail Trade and 63.2% in Transport, Storage & Communications required working experience; 66.9% and 65.3% of the vacancies in the above-mentioned sectors required junior secondary education or higher, while 96.2% of those in Security Activities required primary education only. Besides Cantonese, Mandarin (61.4%) was the more preferable language skill for the vacancies in Wholesale & Retail Trade.