The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the first quarter of 2015. Survey coverage for this quarter comprises Manufacturing; Hotels; Restaurants; Insurance; Financial Intermediation Activities; Electricity, Gas & Water Supply; Child-care and Elderly Care. This survey excludes the self-employed, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies. At the end of the first quarter of 2015, Hotels had 45,817 full-time employees, up by 2.6% year-on-year; average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees in March rose by 8.4% to MOP16,430. Restaurants had 25,260 full-time employees, up by 10.9% year-on-year, with the average earnings rising by 4.0% to MOP8,850. Manufacturing had 9,399 full-time employees, a slight decrease of 0.1% year-on-year; average earnings in March rose by 18.5% year-on-year to MOP10,620. Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 1,080 full-time employees, similar to a year earlier, and their average earnings increased by 9.9% to MOP28,520. Insurance had 490 full-time employees, up by 4.5% year-on-year; average earnings in March rose by 6.5% to MOP25,220. Financial Intermediation Activities had 376 full-time employees, similar to a year earlier, with the average earnings tumbling by 26.8% to MOP13,030. Child-care and Elderly Care had 1,092 and 641 full-time employees, up by 21.3% and 3.7% respectively year-on-year. In March, average earnings of full-time employees in Child-care (MOP12,360) increased by 13.6% year-on-year, and earnings of those working in Elderly Care (MOP12,070) rose by 13.0%. At the end of the first quarter of 2015, Hotels and Restaurants had 1,451 and 2,381 vacancies, down by 1,525 and 635 respectively year-on-year. Job vacancies in Manufacturing totalled 1,614, an increase of 479. About 78.2% of the vacancies in Manufacturing and 68.8% of those in Restaurants required junior secondary education or lower. All of the vacancies in Insurance and Financial Intermediation Activities required knowledge of English; meanwhile, 81.3% and 48.3% of the vacancies in Hotels required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively. In the first quarter of 2015, the employee turnover rate (4.2%) and the employee recruitment rate (4.1%) in Hotels stood at the similar level, while the job vacancy rate (3.1%) stayed relatively low, indicating that manpower availability remained stable. In Restaurants, the job vacancy rate (8.6%) and the employee turnover rate (5.3%) decreased by 3.1 and 2.2 percentage points respectively year-on-year, implying a slight improvement in employee turnover. As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 21,314 participants attended training courses provided by the establishment in the first quarter of 2015 (including courses organized by the establishment or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 77.8% of the Elderly Care institutions provided vocational training to their employees. Over 70% of the participants working in most of the industries attended courses paid by the establishment, while the corresponding rate in Manufacturing and Child-care was 49.1% and 9.0% respectively. Analyzed by course type, most of the participants attended courses in Services, and Business & Administration. Hotels had 18,862 participants attending vocational training, with 61.0% taking courses in Services and 19.6% in Business & Administration; 92.9% of the participants attended courses during office hours.
