The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth quarter of 2022. Survey coverage comprises Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities; however, the self-employed are excluded.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, number of persons engaged in Wholesale & Retail Trade increased by 4.5% year-on-year to 65,462; among them, 41,017 were engaged in Retail Trade, up by 4.1%. In December 2022, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees were MOP13,740, down by 1.7% year-on-year.

The Transport, Storage & Communications sector had 13,964 persons engaged, up by 1.3% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December went down by 6.7% year-on-year to MOP19,960.

Security Activities had 12,974 persons engaged, down by 0.4% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December dropped by 5.2% year-on-year to MOP12,880.

Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 951 persons engaged, a decrease of 0.5% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December rose by 2.2% year-on-year to MOP18,420.

Job vacancies in Wholesale & Retail Trade (2,632) increased by 796 year-on-year, while those in Security Activities (1,111) decreased by 59.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, most of the vacancies in Security Activities (86.9%) and Wholesale Trade (65.3%) required only junior secondary education or lower, while 13.2% of the vacancies in the Transport, Storage & Communications sector required tertiary education. As regards language skills, 75.7% and 53.8% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively, while the corresponding proportions for Security Activities were 52.7% and 41.0%.

The employee turnover rate (5.2%) and the job vacancy rate (4.3%) in Retail Trade increased by 0.9 and 0.3 percentage points year-on-year respectively. As regards the Transport, Storage & Communications sector, the employee turnover rate (4.2%) and the job vacancy rate (5.5%) grew by 0.9 and 2.1 percentage points respectively. This indicated that there were a number of vacancies in these two industries to be filled.

As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 38,597 participants attended 1,073 training courses provided by the establishments in the fourth quarter of 2022 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 43.3% of the establishments in Security Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Security activities had 19,124 participants attending a total of 246 training courses. Analysed by course type, the majority of the participants in Security Activities took courses in “Business & Administration” (71.9%), followed by courses in “Presentation & Communication Skills” (11.1%). Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90.0% of the participants in the surveyed industries, except Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, were paid by the establishments.