Employment rate of citizens up over past decade

The employment rate of citizens rose to 63.6 per cent last year, up from 60 per cent in 2009. ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN

The employment rate of Singapore citizens has risen over the past decade, as has the share of pro-fessionals, managers, executives and technicians among working Singaporeans.

Their median real income grew faster compared with the total resident workforce - which includes permanent residents (PRs) - while citizen unemployment stayed low.

The occasional paper released by the Manpower Ministry (MOM) yesterday also noted that as Singapore citizens consistently make up about 85 per cent of the resident labour force, their trends track closely to those of resident data.

Unemployment rate for Singapore citizens stood at 3.2 per cent last June, slightly higher than the 3.1 per cent for all residents. But this was to be expected, said MOM, as "PRs typically have to demonstrate a high degree of employability before being granted permanent residency".

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 24, 2020, with the headline Employment rate of citizens up over past decade. Subscribe