The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth quarter of 2016. Survey coverage comprises Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities; however, own-account workers are excluded.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2016, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 57,845 persons engaged, up by 3.6% year-on-year, with 36,256 working in Retail Trade. In December 2016, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 2.6% year-on-year to MOP12,800.

Transport, Storage & Communications had 11,184 persons engaged, up by 8.4% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December rose by 1.8% year-on-year to MOP20,870.

Security Activities had 10,606 persons engaged, down slightly by 0.1% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December rose by 4.5% year-on-year to MOP13,030.

Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 860 persons engaged, up by 1.1% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December increased by 8.4% year-on-year to MOP17,730.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2016, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 4,108 vacancies (59.9% in Retail Trade), up by 328 year-on-year. Vacancies in Security Activities fell by 199 to 1,051.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, the majority of the vacancies in Security Activities (81.5%), Transport, Storage & Communications (59.6%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (53.9%) required only junior secondary education or lower. As for language skills, 86.5% and 52.0% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively; the corresponding rates in Security Activitieswere 66.6% and 44.1%.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, the recruitment rate (6.4%) in Retail Trade rose by 1.3 percentage points year-on-year, while the vacancy rate (7.8%) fell by 0.4 percentage points, suggesting that some of the vacancies had already been filled. In addition, the vacancy rate (6.6%) and the recruitment rate (3.8%) in Transport, Storage & Communications dropped by 2.1 and 1.5 percentage points respectively year-on-year, while the turnover rate (3.5%) was similar to that from a year earlier, indicating a decrease in demand for human resources. As for Security Activities, the vacancy rate (9.4%) and the recruitment rate (5.0%) fell by 1.5 and 0.4 percentage points respectively, while the turnover rate (5.6%) went up by 0.9 percentage points, indicating that some of the vacancies had not been filled.

As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 16,293 participants attended 1,016 training courses provided by the establishments in the fourth quarter of 2016 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 54.8% of the establishments in Security Activities and 50.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Wholesale & Retail Trade had the largest number of participants (9,147), attending a total of 688 training courses. Analysed by course type, 66.3% of the participants from Wholesale & Retail Trade and 60.1% of those from Security Activities attended courses in “Business & Administration”. All the industries had over 80% of their participants attending courses paid by the establishments.