The unemployment rate last month edged down 0.04 percentage points to 3.36 percent from a month earlier, the third consecutive month of decline, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The figure was the second-lowest recorded for the month of November in 24 years, second only to 3.34 percent in November last year, the agency said in a report.
After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate rose 0.03 percentage points to 3.41 percent from August, the report showed.
Photo: CNA
The number of unemployed people last month fell by 5,000 month-on-month to 403,000, the DGBAS said, attributing the decline mainly to a lower number of people unhappy with their jobs.
The number of people employed in the domestic agricultural and services sectors fell by 2,000 each from a month earlier, but there were 1,000 more jobs in the industrial sector, it said.
Overall, the local labor market has stabilized, given the decline in the unemployment rate and the number of people who are unemployed, it added.
The stabilization of the labor market was also reflected in youth unemployment figures.
The unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 19 edged down to 7.91 percent from 9.12 percent in October; fell to 11.3 percent from 11.84 percent for people aged 20 to 24; and fell to 5.85 percent from 6.07 percent for those aged 25 to 29; but rose to 3.46 percent from 3.44 percent for those aged between 30 and 34, the report showed.
People with a university degree had the highest unemployment rate at 4.49 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.13 percent and graduate degree holders at 2.97 percent, the data showed.
The average unemployment period last month rose slightly to 21.1 weeks, as it took first-time jobseekers an average of 23.2 weeks to land positions, while others spent 20.5 weeks finding jobs, the report said.
The number of people who were unemployed for more than a year last month rose by 4,000 from October to 51,000 and increased by 6,000 from a year earlier, it said.
In the first 11 months of this year, the unemployment rate was 3.39 percent, down 0.1 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.
Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) said that if economic conditions remain stable, the jobless rate is expected to fall further as this month is the traditional peak consumption season before the Lunar New Year holiday.
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
RSS