Manpower needs and wages down at the end of 2021

At the end of 2021, the demand for manpower in almost all economic sectors decreased. Wages also continued to drop in the last quarter of the year, results from a survey by the Statistics and Census Service show.

According to the release, nearly all the surveyed sectors registered drops in demand for manpower with the only exception being Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities where there was an increase of 1.7% year-on-year compared with the last quarter of 2020.

Despite the increase in this sector the average earnings of full-time employees in December registered a fall of 3.6% year-on-year to MOP18,020.

The Transport, Storage & Communications sector was the only other sector where the manpower needs did not drop, maintaining the level seen a year earlier. As in the Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, however, the average earnings of those employed by this sector dropped by 2% year-on-year to MOP21,390.

In Wholesale & Retail Trade the decrease in manpower was 1.7% y-o-y, while the earnings of these workers in December were down 3.5% compared to June 2021, but up by 3.9% y-o-y to an average of MOP13,980.

From the sectors surveyed, Security Activities registered the most significant drop y-o-y, decreasing by 3.6%. Nonetheless, the average earnings of employees in this sector were the only ones registering an increase (by 2.2%) to MOP13,580.