XN000022-1996-01-11 — Page 23

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In terms of growth rate, employment at construction sites (for manual workers only) recorded the fastest increase, by 9% in September 1995 over September 1994; followed by the financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector, by 4%; the transport, storage and communications sector, by 2.4%; and the community, social and personal services sector, by 2.3%.

On the other hand, employment in the wholesale, retail and import/export trades, restaurants and hotels sector showed a slight decrease of 1.9%, while that in the manufacturing sector fell by 11.9%. The respective employment figures are shown in greater detail in Table 1.

Vacancies at construction sites continued to record a very substantial increase in September 1995 over a year earlier.

The marked increases in both employment and vacancies at construction sites reflected the heavy demand for construction workers by the new airport and related projects.

However, vacancies in manufacturing sector and in all major service sectors decreased. Job vacancy figures are shown in greater detail in Table 2.

Of some 51,000 vacancies (other than those in the Civil Service) in September 1995, the majority fell into four major occupation groups, viz associate professionals, clerks, service workers and shop sales workers, and elementary occupations. They together accounted for 75% of the total number of vacancies in all the major sectors surveyed.

Vacancy figures broken down by major occupation group are shown in Table 3. As these figures are compiled starting from June 1995, year-on-year comparisons are not yet available.

The above statistics for September 1995 were derived from the Quarterly Survey of Employment and Vacancies, the Supplementary Survey of Job Vacancies and the Quarterly Employment Survey of Construction Sites conducted by the department.

In the former two surveys, some economic activities (for example, those where self-employment are predominant, such as taxi operators, hawkers and freelance authors) are not covered and hence the respective employment and vacancy figures relate only to those selected industries included in the surveys.