Workers in selected industries see rise in earnings

The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has released the results of a survey on manpower needs and wages for the second quarter of 2018, covering the sectors of wholesale and retail trade, transport, storage and communications, security activities, and public sewage and refuse disposal. Most of the sectors surveyed registered growth in employee earnings.

At the end of the second quarter of 2018, the wholesale and retail trade sector had 61,288 persons engaged, up by 2.2 percent year-on-year, with 37,886 working in retail. In June 2018, the average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees in the sector rose by 2.5 percent year-on- year to MOP13,370.

Meanwhile, there were 11,251 persons engaged in the transport, storage and communications sector, down by 2.5 percent year-on-year. The average earnings of full-time employees increased by 3.9 percent year-on-year to MOP21,260.

Security activities employed 11,513 persons, up by 7 percent year-on-year, while their average earnings fell 1.2 percent in June year-on-year to MOP12,810.

There were 862 persons employed in the public sewage and refuse disposal sector, down by 0.5 percent year-on- year, while their average earnings increased by 1.5 percent annually to MOP18,420.

The vacancy rate in the retail trade rose by 1.4 percentage points year-on-year to 7.7 percent, while the turnover rate fell by 1.5 percentage points to 4.8 percent, suggesting an increase in demand for manpower in the sector, according to DSEC. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate (6.4 percent) and the turnover rate (5 percent) in transport, storage and communications dropped by 0.4 and 0.2 percentage points respectively year-on-year, and the recruitment rate (7.9 percent) rose by 2.9 percentage points, indicating that some of the vacancies were filled.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most vacancies in public sewage and refuse disposal (88 percent), transport, storage and communications (45.3 percent) and wholesale and retail trade (41.1 percent) required junior secondary level education or lower.

As for language skills, 80.1 percent and 49.3 percent of the vacancies in the retail trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively, while the corresponding proportions in security activities were 41.3 percent and 66.3 percent respectively.