According to preliminary figures released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in its Labour Market Report on Thursday, Singapore’s annual average unemployment rate was higher than the 2.1% recorded in 2018.
SINGAPORE (Jan 31): While the inching up of Singapore’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate by 0.2 percentage points to 2.3% in 2019 is “a concern”, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo believes there is not cause for alarm just yet.
For one, Teo notes that resident and citizen unemployment rates had hovered around 4-5% in the previous decade. “From that perspective,” Teo says, “the unemployment rates for 2019 are a concern but they are not alarming.”
