Singapore’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 3.3% in December 2020, up from 2.3% in December 2019, according to data from the Ministry of Manpower.

For the full year 2020, the unemployment rate stood at 3.0%, up from 2.3% in 2019.

The Ministry said Singapore’s labour market showed signs of improvement during the fourth quarter of 2020. The analysis measured month-on-month data from the last three months of 2020.

On a month-on-month basis, unemployment rates fell in the last two months of 2020, and this continued in January 2021. The unemployment rate in January 2021 stood at 3.2%, a slight improvement over the 3.3% recorded in December 2020, which was also an improvement over November’s 3.4% and October and September’s 3.5% rate.

In 2020, the number of overall unemployed persons stood at 110,400, an increase from 83,700 in 2019. For December 2020, the number of overall unemployed stood at 117,400, up from 85,700 the year prior.

Meanwhile, total employment contracted by 166,600 (excluding Foreign Domestic Workers) for the full year of 2020. This was the sharpest decline in more than two decades.

Resident employment rebounded to slightly above pre-Covid levels by the end of 2020. The contraction in total employment was solely attributed to non-residents.

The Ministry also found that the number of layoffs declined for the first time in Q4 2020, after five consecutive quarters of increases.

The number of job vacancies rose in the December 2020 quarter (compared to September 2020 quarter) for the second consecutive quarter. However, the number job vacancies was below the December 2019 quarter’s levels.