The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the first quarter of 2013. Besides comprising Manufacturing, Hotels & Restaurants, Insurance, Financial Intermediation Activities and Electricity, Gas & Water Supply, this survey has also been extended to Child-care and Elderly Care. This survey excludes the self-employed, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, Manufacturing had 11,193 persons engaged, down by 2.5% year-on-year, of which Manufacture of Wearing Apparel and Manufacture of Food Products had 3,400 and 3,541 respectively. Average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees for March 2013 rose by 7.5% year-on-year to MOP7,890. Hotels & Restaurants took on 69,619 persons engaged, up by 9.0% year-on-year, with those working in Hotels increased by 9.3% year-on-year to 45,599. Average earnings of full-time employees for March 2013 in Hotels & Restaurants rose by 7.9% year-on-year to MOP12,050; with waiters/waitresses of Hotels earning MOP8,500 and Housekeeping staff earning MOP7,830. Waiters/waitresses of Restaurants earned an average of MOP6,940. Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 1,085 persons engaged, up by 2.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees for March increased by 7.3% year-on-year to MOP24,530. Insurance took on 472 persons engaged, up by 3.1% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees for March rose by 5.4% year-on-year to MOP21,560. Financial Intermediation Activities had 388 persons engaged, down significantly by 13.0% year-on-year. For March 2013, average earnings of full-time employees increased by 3.9% year-on-year to MOP13,250. Child-care and Elderly Care totalled 843 and 614 persons engaged respectively. Average earnings of full-time employees for March amounted to MOP10,280 and MOP9,900 respectively. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, Restaurants reported 2,107 vacancies, down significantly by 37.3% from a year earlier. Hotels had 2,086 vacancies, while Manufacturing offered 1,260 vacancies, on account on Manufacture of Wearing Apparel (447) and Manufacture of Food Products (515). In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 92.9% of the vacant posts in Insurance required working experience. As regards educational attainment, 77.2% of the vacancies in Restaurants required junior secondary education or lower, while 85.7% of those in Insurance required tertiary education. Besides Cantonese, all vacant posts in Financial Intermediation required knowledge of Mandarin, while 78.6% of the vacancies in Insurance required English. Meanwhile, 80.9% and 61.1% of the vacant posts in Hotels required knowledge of Mandarin and English respectively. Restaurants had the highest employee turnover rate (6.9%) and employee recruitment rate (7.6%), while the vacancy rate stood at 9.5%, the second highest vacancy rate after Manufacturing (11.0%), indicating that most of the vacancies are not filled and that the turnover of employee is prevalent.
