A sales assistant (right) applies makeup on a customer at a cosmetics counter at a shopping mall in Singapore June 7, 2013. — Reuters pic

SINGAPORE, June 13 — More people aged 30 and over, in particular, those 50 and above, were unemployed in the first quarter of the year, according to MOM’s latest labour market report for the first quarter of 2016.

While unemployment among residents above 30 has risen for a fourth consecutive quarter, this increase was offset by the decline in unemployment rate for younger residents below 30 due to lower labour force participation rate among youths aged 15 to 24, resulting in overall unemployment in Singapore remaining unchanged at 1.9 per cent.

However, the reported noted that long-term unemployment rate increased from 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent.

In the first quarter of 2016, total employment grew by 13,000. Even though the growth was a reversal from the decline of 6,100 in the same period in 2015, it was significantly lower than the figures for 2013 and 2014. 

Meanwhile, 46 per cent of residents who were made redundant in the Q42015 managed to find jobs by March this year. However, this was fewer than the 50 per cent in the previous quarter found jobs, making it the lowest since June 2009 (43 per cent).

Also, the report showed that the number of workers made redundant in the first quarter this year was the highest first quarter redundancies since 2009. 

Even though job openings continued to outnumber job seekers, the seasonally adjusted ratio has declined to 103 openings per 100 job seekers in March 2016, its lowest since June 2012, when there were 98 openings per 100 job seekers. — TODAY