According to the results of the Employment Survey released by the Statistics and Census Service, the unemployment rate for February-April 2008 stood at 2.9%, same as that in the previous period (January-March 2008), but down by 0.3 percentage point year-on-year. The underemployment rate went up by 0.1 percentage point from the previous period to 1.6% in February-April 2008, up by 0.8 percentage point year-on-year.

Total labour force was 328,000 and the labour force participation rate was 70.5%, which decreased by 0.2 percentage point from the previous period, but increased by 3.2 percentage points year-on-year.

The employed population increased by about 1,100 over the previous period to 318,000, with increase in the number of persons working in Restaurants & similar activities and Real estate & business activities.

The unemployed population held stable at around 9,600, with 5.0% of the total (500) searching for their first job, down by 2.4 percentage points over the previous period.