Singapore’s unemployment rate edges up by 0.2% in July
- Claire Lee
- Topics: Health and Wellness, Home Page - News, Job Cuts, News, Singapore
Singapore’s resident and citizen unemployment rate rose slightly in July by 0.2 percentage points each, ending eight straight months of improvement following tighter COVID-19-led restrictions.
The resident unemployment rate increased from 3.5% to 3.7%, while the citizen unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 3.9%. This meant 87,300 residents were unemployed in July, of which 77,200 were citizens, according to MOM.
Overall unemployment reached 2.8% in July, up from 2.7% in June.
MOM said that the rise in unemployment could be due to a “temporary easing of manpower demand” in certain sectors during Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) from May 16 to June 13.
This therefore likely affected demand for manpower in affected sectors such as F&B and retail, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng in a Facebook post.
READ: Singapore explores more pervasive use of COVID-19 tests at the workplace
“As Singapore moves towards becoming a COVID-resilient nation, measures will be relaxed further as more sectors of our economy reopen. This will help boost manpower demand and allow our labour market to continue recovering,” he added.
