The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the fourth quarter of 2019. 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 2019, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 65,435 persons engaged, up by 4.6% year-on-year, with 41,961 working in Retail Trade. In December 2019, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees rose by 1.3% year-on-year to MOP14,390.

The Transport, Storage & Communications sector had 13,840 persons engaged, an increase of 13.6% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees rose by 7.0% year-on-year to MOP23,300 in December.

Security Activities had 13,435 persons engaged, up by 11.8% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December grew by 3.7% year-on-year to MOP13,680.

Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 916 persons engaged, up by 4.3% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in December went up by 8.1% year-on-year to MOP19,730.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2019, job vacancies in Retail Trade (2,080) and Security Activities (1,425) fell by 954 and 100 respectively year-on-year, while those in Wholesale Trade (884) increased by 311.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, the majority of the vacancies in Security Activities (83.7%) and in Wholesale & Retail Trade (57.1%) required only junior secondary education or lower, while 24.2% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities required tertiary education. As regards language skills, 84.4% and 35.5% of the vacancies in Retail Trade required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively, whereas the corresponding proportions for Security Activities were 55.4% and 34.7%.

The job vacancy rate (5.7%) and the employee turnover rate (5.6%) in Retail Trade fell by 3.1 and 0.6 percentage points respectively year-on-year, while the employee recruitment rate (5.5%) edged up by 0.5 percentage points, indicating that some vacant posts in the industry had been filled. In the Transport, Storage & Communications sector, the recruitment rate (5.9%) dropped by 1.0 percentage point while the vacancy rate (5.8%) inched up by 0.7 percentage points, showing that some of the vacancies in the industry remained unfilled.

As regards vocational training in the surveyed industries, a total of 22,935 participants attended 1,273 training courses provided by the establishments in the fourth quarter of 2019 (including courses organised by the establishments or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the employer); 54.4% of the establishments in Security Activities and 25.0% of those in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities provided vocational training to their employees. Wholesale & Retail Trade had the largest number of participants, with 10,185 participants attending a total of 819 training courses. Analysed by course type, most of the participants in Wholesale & Retail Trade took courses in “Business & administration” (78.0%) and “Services” (8.2%). Meanwhile, the course fees of over 90% of the participants in the surveyed industries were paid by the establishments.