STATISTICS ON JOBS CREATED

STATISTICS ON JOBS CREATED: 2.

Mr Siew Kum Hong asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how many of the jobs created in 2006 were taken up by Singapore citizens, permanent residents and foreigners respectively; (b) what is the Government estimates of

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these statistics if it does not track them for Singapore citizens and permanent residents; and (c) whether it can derive such statistics using income tax and CPF contribution data and, if so, what are these statistics.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Ng Eng Hen): Mr Speaker, Sir, our employment data is based on the resident or local population which captures Singapore citizens and permanent residents as a single group. In other words, our system enters it as one component. We do not separate them as at this moment.

If we wanted a sense amongst the local population - what proportion of Singapore citizens vis-a-vis PRs - as a snapshot, we do have the breakdown of proportions within the general population – we take the census or when we do our surveys - for example, in June 2005, out of a total population of 4.34 million, the Department of Statistics said that 72% were citizens, 10% were permanent residents and 18% were non-residents. So if it is 10% PRs out of a population of 4.34 million, we have 430,000 PRs, and we assume that some of them are children and housewives, and assume that a number are working and then try to minus the number of what you get from our labour data, you could come up with a guesstimate, but it is just a guess work. It would be difficult to extrapolate this to derive accurate employment data for the various groups, because we must also take into account the change in employment numbers. The employment numbers fluctuate and we are not sure which group is changing at that point of time - foreign workers and PRs moving in and out of Singapore as well as the fact that PRs change their status and become citizens across periods.

What we can say is that for locals, 2006 was a record year for employment

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creation. Another way of looking at it and addressing the NMP's point is whether there were adequate jobs created for Singaporeans. Out of a total of 173,300 jobs, which was a record year, we know that more than half were for locals - 88,200. But our average shows that each year, we only add about 33,000 locals for the past. In other words, for the last two years, especially for last year, we have exceeded that to about two or three times what the average number of jobs created for locals.

I think a better way of measuring this would be to move towards employment data. I will speak a little bit more about this during the Committee of Supply. That will give us a better sense of all available citizens within an age band how many are working. That number is quite determinate and that is where most countries are moving towards to give accurate employment data.