Labor Over 5,700 residents hired through DSAL sessions amid high-unemployment rate

Data from the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) shows that it has assisted a total of 5,762 residents to be hired through their job-matching sessions since the beginning of the year.

Since January, 69 job-matching sessions have been held, along with 57 sessions involving gaming operators and two large-scale sessions.

The pandemic-hit region has been striving to adhere to a zero-Covid policy but has been seeing a rise in the unemployment rate due to the economic fallout.

In response, the government has held job-matching sessions to combat unemployment, and is giving subsidies to those who have hired unemployed residents.

Since 2020, DSAL said that it had matched a total of 12,986 residents to jobs offered by local firms.

Additionally, in collaboration with youth associations, DSAL has been organizing the Youth Job Fair every year after the graduation season, in order to create a job matching platform for companies and young people in Macau.

Recent data shows that the general unemployment rate decreased slightly to 4% in the July to September period, while the unemployment rate of local residents stood at 5.2%, dropping slightly by 0.3 percentage points.

The total number of people employed was 363,000 and employed residents totaled 280,000, up 100 and 1,700 respectively from the previous period.

Lawmakers have continuously highlighted the unemployment rate dilemma and have suggested creating more jobs in suitable industries to hire local residents. They have also called upon the government to improve the success rate of job-matching sessions and review the Labour Relations Law to improve policies on payments in arrears. LV