Singapore (VNA) – Singapore’s labour market hascontinued its recovery from the COVID-19 in the first three months of the year,with total employment growing for the first time since the start of thepandemic, according the country’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

The services sector led the way in adding jobs to themarket, particularly information and communications, financial services andprofessional services.

Employment in construction also saw a slight rebound, whilethat in manufacturing continued to contract, but at a slower pace.

Meanwhile, unemployment here, which peaked at 3.5 percentin September last year, continued to ease but remains above pre-pandemiclevels.

The estimated overall unemployment rate in March is 2.9percent, said MOM.

The ministry’s data also showed that the number ofretrenchments continued to decline for the second consecutive quarter topre-pandemic levels, after peaking in the third quarter of 2020.

Similarly, the incidence of retrenchments also fell, from2.8 workers retrenched per 1,000 employees in the fourth quarter of last yearto 1.1 workers retrenched per 1,000 employees in the first quarter of thisyear.

However, MOM cautioned that there may still be pockets ofjob displacements due to ongoing restructuring and reorganisation ofbusinesses.

While the preliminary estimates show encouraging signs ofbroad-based recovery, the labour market is still not fully back to pre-COVID-19conditions, the ministry said.

The labour market will continue to face challenges fromtravel restrictions that affect the inflow of work pass holders, as well asfrom the changing profiles of jobs available as a result of businesstransformations.

Business sentiment appears relatively positive, MOM said,citing ongoing polls of companies. In March, 73 percent of the companies polledindicated they had plans to hire, up from 65 percent in December last year.

The proportion of companies that intend to cut staff sizefell to 2.2 percent, from 2.8 percent in December./.