The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the second quarter of 2017. Survey coverage comprises Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities; however, own-account workers are excluded.
At the end of the second quarter of 2017, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 59,971 persons engaged, up by 6.1% year-on-year, with 38,110 working in Retail Trade. In June 2017, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 3.6% year-on-year to MOP13,050.
Transport, Storage & Communications had 11,538 persons engaged, up by 6.1% year-on-year. With an increase in newly hired employees and their relatively low entry wages, the average earnings of full-time employees in June went down by 1.2% year-on-year to MOP20,460.
Security Activities had 10,760 persons engaged, down slightly by 1.7% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June rose by 4.4% year-on-year to MOP12,960.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 866 persons engaged, up by 3.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in June increased by 3.8% year-on-year to MOP18,150.
At the end of the second quarter of 2017, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 3,476 vacancies (59.2% in Retail Trade), down by 344 year-on-year. Vacancies in Security Activities fell by 275 to 964.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, the majority of the vacancies in Security Activities (75.6%), Transport, Storage & Communications (53.9%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (47.0%) required only junior secondary education or lower. As for language skills, 86.0% and 51.6% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively; the corresponding rates in Security Activities were 59.5% and 33.7%.
In the second quarter of 2017, the recruitment rate (6.6%) in Retail Trade rose by 1.3 percentage points year-on-year while the vacancy rate (6.3%) fell by 2.1 percentage points, suggesting that some of the vacancies had already been filled. In addition, the vacancy rate (6.8%) in Transport, Storage & Communications dropped by 1.6 percentage points year-on-year, while the turnover rate (5.2%) and the recruitment rate (5.0%) rose by 1.0 and 0.4 percentage points respectively, indicating an easing in demand for human resources in this sector. As for Security Activities, the vacancy rate (8.5%) and the recruitment rate (3.8%) fell by 2.0 and 0.6 percentage points respectively, while the turnover rate (3.9%) went up by 0.2 percentage points, indicating that some of the vacancies had not been filled.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 14,146 participants attended 878 training courses provided by the establishments in the second quarter of 2017 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 75.0% of the establishments in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities and 61.0% of those in Security Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Wholesale & Retail Trade had the largest number of participants (8,115), attending a total of 545 training courses. Analysed by course type, 61.1% of the participants from Wholesale & Retail Trade and 58.6% of those from Security Activities attended “Business & Administration” courses. All the surveyed industries had over 90% of their participants attending courses paid by the establishments.