According to the results of the Employment Survey released by the Statistics and Census Service, the unemployment rate for March-May 2008 stayed at 2.9%, the same level for the past seven periods, down by 0.3 percentage point year-on-year. The underemployment rate also remained unchanged from the previous period, at 1.6%, but up by 0.7 percentage point year-on-year.

Total labour force was 329,200 in March-May 2008; the labour force participation rate was same as in February-April 2007, at 70.5%, up by 2.5 percentage points year-on-year.

The employed population rose by 1,500 over the previous period to 319,600, with increase in the number of persons working in Transport, Storage & Communications sector and Retail Trade, but decrease in the Manufacturing sector.

The unemployed population stayed at around 9,600, with 3.9% of the total (400) searching for their first job, down by 1.1 percentage points over the previous period.