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Tight labor market in Singapore expected in 2015

Xinhua, April 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore's labor market is expected to be tight in 2015 as "firm manpower demand, especially in the domestic-oriented services sectors, runs up against increasingly binding labor supply constraints," said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in its half-yearly macroeconomic review released on Tuesday.

MAS said workers have benefited more from economic growth. The wage bill accounted for 86 percent of GDP growth last year, with the wage share at 43 percent of nominal GDP, the highest in the last decade. The bulk of the gains in the wage bill were due to a local employment increase.

MAS expected that wage will rise amid the tight labor market this year, but it is unlikely to exceed the historical average of 3.7 percent. As economic conditions improve and the unemployment rate falls further, the increase of wage could be more sharply in 2016.

However, wage gains will remain uneven across sectors, said MAS. Generally speaking, wage gains are stronger in the non-tradable sectors where vacancy rates have been comparatively high. Endi