The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released survey results of Manpower Needs and Wages for the second quarter of 2013. Survey coverage comprised Wholesale & Retail Trade; Transport, Storage & Communications; Security Activities and Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities, excluding own-account workers.

At the end of the second quarter of 2013, Wholesale & Retail Trade had 42,643 persons engaged, up by 13.8% year-on-year, with 26,840 working in Retail trade. In June 2013, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees rose by 6.4% year-on-year to MOP11,060, with Sales representatives and Salespersons earning MOP12,570 and MOP10,080 respectively in average.

Transport, Storage & Communications had 9,119 persons engaged, up by 7.9% year-on-year. In June, average earnings of full-time employees increased by 4.6% year-on-year to MOP17,210. Drivers of passenger/cargo transport by land earned an average of MOP18,200.

Security Activities had 5,329 persons engaged, up by 6.3% year-on-year. The average earnings of full-time employees in June rose by 4.3% year-on-year to MOP8,740, with Security guards earning MOP8,250 in average.

Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities had 732 persons engaged, up by 4.9% year-on-year. The average earnings of full-time employees in June increased by 16.5% year-on-year to MOP14,120.

At the end of the second quarter of 2013, Wholesale & Retail Trade reported 3,809 vacancies, down by 1,017 year-on-year, of which 2,656 were in Retail trade. Security Activities had 665 vacancies, down by 127, while Transport, Storage & Communications offered 770 vacant posts.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 69.2% of the vacancies in Public Sewage & Refuse Disposal Activities required work experience. 88.0% of the vacancies in Security activities required junior secondary education or lower respectively, while 41.8% of those in Retail Trade required senior secondary or higher education. Besides Cantonese, knowledge of Mandarin and English was respectively required in 88.9% and 55.8% of the vacancies in Retail Trade.

In the second quarter of 2013, the employee turnover rate (6.6%) and the employee recruitment rate (9.1%) of Retail trade fell by 2.4 and 0.7 percentage points year-on-year respectively; in addition, the vacancy rate (10.8%) also fell by 4.8 percentage points, indicating that the outflow of human resources showed improvement but vacancies were still not filled. Moreover, the vacancy rate in Security activities remained high at 11.5%.