Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the unemployment rate for October-December 2016 held stable as in the previous period (September-November 2016), at 1.9%; the underemployment rate was 0.6%, down by 0.1 percentage point.

Total labour force was 392,600 and the labour force participation rate stood at 71.8%. Total employment decreased by 500 from the previous period, at 385,000. Number of the unemployed was 7,600, similar to that in September-November 2016; fresh labour force entrants searching for their first job accounted for 8.9% of the total unemployed, down by 5.8 percentage points.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, the general unemployment rate (1.9%) remained unchanged from the previous quarter, while the unemployment rate of local residents (2.7%) increased slightly by 0.1 percentage point. Total employment decreased by 9,200 quarter-to-quarter. Analysed by industry, employment in Construction (37,200) dropped by 7,900, following the successive completion of large-scale entertainment facilities; meanwhile, employment in Health & Social Welfare (13,400) rose by 1,600. Median monthly employment earnings of both the employed (MOP15,000) and the employed residents (MOP18,000) remained unchanged from the third quarter of 2016.

For the whole year of 2016, the general unemployment rate stood at 1.9% and the unemployment rate of local residents was 2.7%, up by 0.1 and 0.2 percentage points respectively year-on-year. Median monthly employment earnings of both the employed (MOP15,000) and the employed residents (MOP18,000) stayed flat from the previous year. As regards household employment, average number of employed persons per household was 1.7 in 2016, down by 0.1 year-on-year; the median monthly employment earnings per household remained unchanged from 2015, at MOP28,000.