The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth 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 fourth quarter of 2017, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 57,641 persons engaged, down by 0.4% year-on-year, with 37,050 working in Retail Trade. In December 2017, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 5.3% year-on-year to MOP13,480.
Transport, Storage & Communications had 11,360 persons engaged, up by 1.6% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees increased by 2.9% year-on-year to MOP21,470 in December.
Security Activities had 10,862 persons engaged, up by 2.4% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December rose by 1.7% year-on-year to MOP13,250.
Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 862 persons engaged, similar to the number in the fourth quarter of 2016. Average earnings of full-time employees in December increased by 2.3% year-on-year to MOP18,130.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, job vacancies in Retail Trade went up by 319 year-on-year, while those in Wholesale Trade and Transport, Storage & Communications fell by 441 and 84 respectively.
In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most vacancies in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities (89.1%), Transport, Storage & Communications (50.5%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (45.4%) required only junior secondary education or lower. As for language skills, 73.6% and 53.6% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively; the corresponding proportions in Security Activities were 68.2% and 75.8% respectively.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, the vacancy rate (8.5%) in Retail Trade rose by 0.7 percentage points year-on-year, while the turnover rate (5.4%) fell by 0.8 percentage points, suggesting an increase in demand for human resources in this sector. In addition, the vacancy rate (5.8%) in Transport, Storage & Communications dropped by 0.8 percentage points, while the recruitment rate (4.7%) and turnover rate (3.9%) rose by 0.9 and 0.4 percentage points respectively year-on-year, indicating that some vacancies in this sector have been filled.
As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 28,812 participants attended 1,100 training courses provided by the establishments in the fourth quarter of 2017 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 61.0% of the establishments in Security Activities and 50.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Security Activities had the largest number of participants, with 18,418 participants attending a total of 126 training courses. Analysed by course type, 68.2% of the participants from Wholesale & Retail Trade and 37.3% of those from Security Activities attended “Business & Administration” courses. With respect to course fee, all the surveyed industries had over 60% of their participants attending courses paid by the establishments.