XN000022-1997-03-19 — Page 56

Reply:

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Mr President,

(a)

(b)

The statistics on the quarterly unemployment rate and underemployment rate by major economic sectors for the past two years are given at Annexes A and B. It can be seen that the overall unemployment rate declined from 3.5% in the fourth quarter of 1995 to 2.6% in the same quarter last year.

In 1996, construction, manufacturing and the distributive and catering trades were the three sectors which experienced a relatively higher unemployment rate than the other sectors. Nevertheless, there had been progressive improvements in the employment situation in these sectors throughout the year.

In the construction sector where the unemployment rate declined from 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 1995 to 2.8% in the same quarter last year, the incidence of unemployment fell mainly on the semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The higher than overall unemployment rate in this sector was mainly a reflection of the operational nature of the construction industry i.e. the demand for work tends to fluctuate between construction contracts or programmes. Construction workers may become temporarily unemployed upon the winding down or completion of a particular phase of construction, before being called back to work when a new phase or a new project starts. Therefore, while the unemployment rate in the construction sector was amongst the highest in 1996, the median duration of unemployment in this sector was 56 days in 1996, which was considerably shorter than that of 73 days in respect of all the unemployed persons.