SINGAPORE, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Ministry of Manpower announced on Friday that the country's seasonal adjusted citizen unemployment rate inched up slightly from 3.1 percent in December 2018 to 3.2 percent in March 2019.
Meanwhile, the overall unemployment rate and the resident unemployment rate held steady this March at 2.2 percent and 3 percent, respectively, according to the advance release of the Labour Market Report for the first quarter of 2019.
Singapore's employment, excluding foreign domestic workers, increased by 12,000 in the first quarter of 2019, compared to 14,700 in the previous quarter and 400 in the year-earlier period.
The ministry said the employment growth in the first quarter of 2019 was mainly in services sectors, such as community, social and personal services, administrative and support services, professional services, financial services, and transportation and storage.
The city-state's construction sector saw its employment increase slightly in the quarter, after 11 consecutive quarters of decline. Its manufacturing sector continued to shed workers.
"Preliminary indicators suggest that the labour market is holding up, though citizen unemployment rate continued to inch up," said the ministry.
