Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the unemployment rate for January - March 2010 held stable at 2.9% and the underemployment rate also remained unchanged at 1.8% in comparison with the previous period (December 2009 - February 2010). Total labour force was 323,300 in January - March 2010 and the labour force participation rate stood at 71.1%, with the employed population increasing by 600 over the previous period to 313,800. Analyzed by industry, employment of Retail Trade and the Hotel Sector saw increase from the previous period, while that of the Construction Sector and Wholesale Trade registered a decrease. In January - March 2010, number of the unemployed increased by about 300 from the previous period to 9,500, with 5.9% being fresh labour force entrants searching for their first job, down by 2.7 percentage points. In comparison with January - March 2009, the labour force participation rate and the unemployment rate dropped by 1.3 and 0.9 percentage point respectively; meanwhile, the underemployment rate stayed unchanged. In the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate of local residents was 3.7%, same as the fourth quarter of 2009; the labour force participation rate of local residents increased slightly by 0.2 percentage point to 66.2%.
