THE second quarter saw a doubling of jobs lost, from 6,200 to 12,400. It should comfort labour economists and unionists that the dip looks bigger than it is, when contrasted with the year-earlier quarterly gain of 71,000 jobs and the 21,000 places created in the 2008 fourth quarter. That was when workplaces were thick with talk of an impending job contraction as the slowdown in the G-3 industrial sphere worked its way through the global supply and service chain. No job loss is ever statistically insignificant, even if 12,400 losses in six months are relatively a small penalty to bear during a recession.
It could have been worse, if not for government relief provided in wage and training support. But proof of the setback being mercifully mild is that the second-quarter jobless rate held steady at 3.3 per cent, when forecasts were of a rise to about 4 per cent. Among citizens and permanent residents, the so-called resident labour force, it actually slid marginally, from 4.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent.
On balance, the jobs performance has not been the shop of horrors the business slump was supposed to create. Nevertheless the caution by the Manpower Ministry and the NTUC that the crisis has not passed is well taken, as enthusiasm about near-normalcy returning is not justified yet.
The X-factor one looks for now is that business and consumer sentiment, the one improving and the other positive, will propel jobs growth from now. Layoffs were halved in the second quarter, to 5,500. This is a crucial indicator of business sentiment, propped up by steady consumer spending. All eyes will now focus on the services and construction sectors. Both of these continued gaining jobs in the second quarter, although at a slower rate than in the previous three months. The pick-up in activity in the finance sector and the three new shopping centres in Orchard Road operating at full tilt by year-end can be expected to boost employment numbers. Construction activity, with its flow-on gains among suppliers, will likewise grow on expectations of a rebound in property deals and building projects.
Amid the positive signs, a rebuke is in order for some young job-seekers who seem to inhabit a different planet. Their initial indifference towards offers of gaming-floor jobs at the Marina Bay Sands casino-resort betrayed two deficiencies: an absence of job hunger and distaste for shift work. They may get through the current trough unscathed because it is not as severe as feared and helping hands are reaching out all over. Should a jobs drought far worse than this one strike, it would be a realisation absorbed too late.
