Amid the economic slowdown, unemployment in Singapore crept up in the third quarter of this year and retrenchments rose.

The overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 2.3 per cent, the highest since the global financial crisis in 2009. But employment growth climbed to 22,400, the highest level in nearly five years. The service, construction and manufacturing sectors all hired more workers.

This is based on the latest preliminary figures on jobs released by the Ministry of Manpower yesterday.

While analysts do not expect the labour market situation to worsen significantly, they had mixed views on how soon it will improve.

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