The employment rate for residents aged 15 & over in Singapore rebounded from 64.5% in June 2020 to 67.2% in June 2021, after declining from 65.2% in June 2019, according to data from the Ministry of Manpower.

The improvement in the employment rate reflected economic recovery and the impact of measures such as the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, Jobs Support Scheme and Jobs Growth Incentive on the labour market.

The employment rate of youths (aged 15 to 24) rose from 30.9% in June 2020 to 37.2% in June 2021. This was mainly due to more students taking on          part-time or temporary work. The employment rate for youths is lower than for residents aged 25-64 as the majority of youths in Singapore are in education or training.

Among residents aged 25 to 64, the employment rate rose from 80.3% in June 2020 to 81.8% in June 2021. The improvement was seen for both men and women. It improved from 87.9% to 88.9% for men, and from 73.2% to 75.1% for women.

Supported by sustained efforts to raise the employability of seniors, such as the Senior Worker Early Adopter Grant, the employment rate of seniors aged 65 and over rose to 28.5% in June last year despite the recession, and continued to increase at a faster pace to 31.7% as at June 2021.

The majority of resident employees were permanent employees (88%). An increase in demand for temporary staff for Covid-19-related activities and economic uncertainty led to a new high in the share of those on fixed-term contracts at 8.4%. This was an increase from 7.3% in June 2020, and driven by increases among residents on contracts of less than one year. However, the number of residents on permanent employment also grew by 50,900.

The unemployment rate (non-seasonally adjusted) for resident non-PMETs (non-professionals, managers, executives & technicians) improved from 6.4% in June 2020 to 5.1% in June 2021.

The unemployment rate for resident PMETs also edged down from 3.5% to 3.4%.

However, these rates have yet to return to pre-Covid-19 rates.

The resident long-term unemployment rates held steady at 0.8% for PMETs and 0.9% for non-PMETs after increasing last year. The elevated long-term unemployment rate compared to pre-Covid-19 suggests that some workers who were displaced earlier faced challenges in their job search.

Meanwhile, nominal median income of full-time employed residents grew in June 2021 (3.2%) after decreasing in June 2020 (-0.6%). After accounting for inflation, real median income growth was smaller but remained positive at 1.1%, more than offsetting the decline of 0.4% in 2020.