The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the first quarter of 2012. Survey coverage comprised the Manufacturing sector; Hotels & Restaurants; the Insurance sector; Financial Intermediation Activities and the Electricity, Gas & Water Supply sector, excluding own-account workers, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies.

At the end of the first quarter of 2012, the Manufacturing sector had 11,160 paid employees, down by 10.4% year-on-year, with those working in Manufacture of Wearing Apparel (3,897) and Manufacture of Textiles (608) decreasing significantly by 26.1% and 27.9% respectively. In addition, there were 3,180 paid employees in Manufacturing of Food Products, up by 10.8% year-on-year. In March 2012, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees rose by 13.6% year-on-year to MOP7,340, with Sewing machine operators earning MOP3,610 in average.

Hotels & Restaurants took on 63,204 paid employees, up by 17.2% year-on-year. With new hotels coming into operation, number of paid employees in hotels surged significantly by 18.7% year-on-year to 41,722. In March, average earnings of full-time employees rose by 4.4% year-on-year to MOP11,170. Waiters/waitresses of hotels earned an average of MOP7,790, while those of restaurants earned MOP6,480. Housekeeping staff earned MOP7,210.

The Electricity, Gas & Water Supply sector had 1,062 paid employees, unchanged year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees increased by 2.8% over March 2011 to MOP22,860.

The Insurance sector took on 458 paid employees, up by 1.3% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in March rose by 9.1% year-on-year to MOP20,450.

Financial Intermediation Activities had 445 paid employees, up by 5.0% year-on-year. In March, average earnings of full-time employees increased by 8.7% year-on-year to MOP12,750.

At the end of the first quarter of 2012, the Hotel sector reported 2,457 vacancies, down significantly by 53.2% from the third quarter of 2011; restaurants had 3,362 vacancies; meanwhile, Manufacturing offered 1,449 vacancies of which 588 were in Manufacture of Food Products and 480 in Manufacture of Wearing Apparels.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 65.0% of the vacant posts in Insurance sector and 59.8% of those in Hotels & Restaurants required work experience. As regards educational attainment, 76.3% of the vacancies in the Manufacturing sector and 68.9% in the Hotels & Restaurants required junior secondary education or lower; meanwhile, all of those in the Insurance sector and 80.0% of the vacancies in Financial Intermediation Activities required senior secondary education or higher.

Besides Cantonese, knowledge of Mandarin and English were respectively required in 85.0% and 95.0% of the vacancies in the Insurance sector; meanwhile, the respective percentages for those in Hotels & Restaurants were 58.7% and 41.9%.

With respect to the indicators that measure inflow and outflow of human resources, as well as staffing needs, Hotels & Restaurants had the highest employee recruitment rate (11.2%) and employee turnover rate (7.5%), indicating rapid turnover of employees in this sector. The Manufacturing sector had the highest job vacancy rate of 12.4%, which was followed by the Hotels & Restaurants, at 9.0%.