Manpower, wages generally rose in Dec 2018

Manpower and wages across the SAR’s different sectors recorded a general increase in December 2018, except for the wages of employees in the security sector, which recorded a slight decrease of 0.5 percent year-on-year to MOP13,190, according to data released by the Statistics and Census Service.

However, the number of employees in the security sector were up 10.6 percent year-on-year to 12,017.

The ‘wholesale and retail trade’, ‘transport, storage and communications’ and ‘public sewage and refuse disposal activities’ sectors all recorded an increase in manpower and wages.

The number of people employed in the wholesale and retail trade had increased to 62,537 by the end of 2018, an increase of 8.5 percent year- on-year, with 39,362 working in retail trade component.

Average earnings of full-time employees rose by 5.3 percent year-on-year to MOP14,200.

Transport, storage and communications had 12,182 persons engaged, up by 7.2 percent year-on-year as new passenger transport operators came into service after the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. Average earnings of full-time employees in this industry rose slightly by 1.4 percent year-on-year to MOP21,780 in December.

Public sewage and refuse disposal activities had 878 persons employed, up by 1.9 percent year-on-year, while the average earnings of full-time employees in December increased by 0.7 percent year-on-year to MOP18,250.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2018, job vacancies in security activities (1,525) and in the retail trade (3,034) increased 502 and 253 respectively year-on-
year, while those in wholesale trade (573) fell by 333.

Regarding vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 20,994 participants attended 1,062 training courses provided by establishments in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Security activities had the largest number of participants, with 9,010 participants attending a total of 166 training courses.

Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90 percent of the participants in the surveyed industries – except for public sewage and refuse disposal activities – were paid for by the establishments. LV