For a tiny city-state known for importing labor to help sustain its US$300 billion economy, any surprise drop in Singapore’s job creation would have implications for wages, inflation and even monetary policy.
Employment unexpectedly fell by 6,100 between January and March, the first contraction since the second quarter of 2009, with jobs growth in the services sector down sharply and manufacturers cutting jobs against a backdrop of tepid economic growth.
However, wages are not falling. In fact, other data showed that the labor market remained tight, pointing to wage growth in a low inflation environment and supporting the case for steady monetary policy.
The drop in employment is probably more a reflection of the difficulties that companies face in hiring workers due to constraints on supply such as government restrictions on the hiring of foreign workers, rather than a decline in demand for labor, said Hayato Nakamura, Singapore-based senior economist for Bank of Tokyo-
Mitsubishi UFJ.
The ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons rose to a 17-year high of 143 openings per 100 jobseekers in the first quarter.
Official data also showed that average monthly nominal earnings per worker in the period climbed 3 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 2.2 percent drop in the second quarter of 2009, the last time employment fell in a quarter.
Second-quarter jobs data are due to be released next month.
“Our clients continue to tell us that they struggle to find the talent that they need to drive their business to the next phase of growth,” said Michael Smith, Singapore-based manager for recruitment agency Randstad. “Which is another reason why they are prepared to pay a little bit more typically to attract the right people, and another reason why I’m a strong believer that we’ll see wage growth on average between 3 and 5 percent.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained