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Unemployment rate rises to 3.87 percent

The nation's unemployment rate rose to 3.87 percent last month from 3.83 percent in April, as the number of first-time job seekers and people who lost their jobs because of layoffs increased, the statistics bureau said yesterday.

Last month's figure was up from 3.84 percent a year earlier, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said.

Seasonally adjusted, the jobless rate was 3.95 percent last month, down slightly from 3.96 percent in April, but up from 3.91 percent a year earlier, it said.

For the first five months of the year, unemployment averaged 3.84 percent, unchanged from a year earlier and marking a new low for the five-month period since 2002.

The number of first-time jobseekers who failed to get a job rose by 2,000, the same as the increase in the number of those who lost their jobs because of layoffs last month, DGBAS said.

But the number of people who lost seasonal jobs fell by 3,000, it said.

Last month, 413,000 of the nation's 10.67 million labor force were unemployed.

Last month's unemployment rate of 3.87 percent compared favorably to Germany's 9.1 percent, France's 8.2 percent, Canada's 6.1 percent, the US' 4.5 percent and Hong Kong's 4.3 percent, while Japan and South Korea saw a jobless rate of 3.8 percent and 3.4 percent respectively, and Singapore, 2.9 percent, DGBAS figures showed.
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