The overall demand for labour in Singapore continues to show signs of cooling, with job vacancies declining even as growth sectors such as healthcare and financial services helped push up employment numbers for its residents.
Finalised Ministry of Manpower (MOM) data for the third quarter of 2023 released on Dec 14 showed the number of job vacancies at 78,400 in September.
This marks a decline for the sixth consecutive quarter from the peak of 126,000 in March 2022.
The ministry said the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed people stood at 1.58 in September, adding that this is down from 1.94 in June.
Almost half of the September vacancies - 38,700 - were for professional, managerial, executive and technical roles in the services industries.
Vacancies in growth sectors, which are associated with higher productivity and pay, made up nearly one-third of the overall job vacancies available, MOM added.
Examples of such sectors include health and social services, information and communications, professional services, and financial and insurance services.
In another sign of cooling demand, growth in the total number employed, excluding migrant domestic workers, slowed to 23,600 workers.
This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of growth, but the pace of increase has been slowing since the third quarter of 2022, which notched an employment growth high of 75,900.
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