The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the third quarter of 2012. Survey coverage comprises Manufacturing; Hotels & Restaurants; Insurance; Financial Intermediation Activities and Electricity, Gas & Water Supply. This survey excludes the self-employed, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies. At the end of the third quarter of 2012, Manufacturing had 11,074 paid employees, down by 6.2% year-on-year, with those working in Manufacture of Textiles (562) and Manufacture of Wearing Apparel (3,760) decreasing significantly by 30.1% and 17.0% respectively; meanwhile, those working in Manufacture of Food Products (3,173) increased by 7.3%. In September 2012, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees rose by 11.7% year-on-year to MOP7,750, with Sewing machine operators earning MOP3,900 in average. Hotels & Restaurants took on 67,445 paid employees, up by 16.1% year-on-year. Number of paid employees in hotels increased by 16.8% year-on-year to 44,587. In September, average earnings of full-time employees rose by 7.0% year-on-year to MOP11,500. Waiters/waitresses of hotel and restaurant earned an average of MOP8,110 and MOP6,710 respectively, while Housekeeping staff earned MOP7,550. Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 1,091 paid employees, up by 2.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees increased by 4.7% over September 2011 to MOP24,530. Insurance took on 458 paid employees, down slightly by 0.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in September rose by 7.2% year-on-year to MOP20,690. Financial Intermediation Activities had 420 paid employees, up by 8.0% year-on-year. In September, average earnings of full-time employees decreased by 3.5% year-on-year to MOP12,530. At the end of the third quarter of 2012, the Hotel sector reported 2,559 vacancies, down significantly by 51.2% from a year earlier. Restaurants had 2,227 vacancies, while Manufacturing offered 1,332, of which 533 were in Manufacture of Wearing Apparel and 457 in Manufacture of Food Products. In terms of recruitment prerequisites, except Financial Intermediation Activities, the majority of the vacant posts required working experience. As regards educational attainment, 70.0% of the vacancies in Manufacturing and 58.5% in Hotels & Restaurants required junior secondary education or lower; meanwhile, 75.0% of the vacancies in Insurance and 64.3% in Electricity, Gas & Water Supply required tertiary education. Besides Cantonese, 70.0% of the vacancies in Insurance required knowledge of Mandarin and 95.0% required English, while 54.3% in Hotels & Restaurants required Mandarin and 33.3% required English. Employee recruitment rate of Hotels was 9.6% in the third quarter of 2012, while the job vacancy rate stood at 5.5%, down by 6.8 percentage points year-on-year, indicating that some of the vacancies have been filled.
