More locals than foreigners found jobs in Singapore for the first time in three years when the economy shrank 2 per cent last year. The number of local jobholders increased by 41,800 while 4,200 foreigners were thrown out of work. It was a reprise of events after the 2001 recession except that far more foreign workers suffered job losses then.
The total working population stood at 2.99 million at the end of December last year, with 1.93 million locals making up nearly 65 per cent of the workforce and 1.05 million foreigners.
It was a big change from 2007 and 2008 when far more foreign workers were hired than locals.
The sharp drop in foreign workers after the 2001 recession, when the economy shrank 2.4 per cent, and their big increase in 2007-2008 are both reflected in this chart. Based on figures from a Ministry of Manpower report, it shows economic downturns have hit foreign workers harder than locals in Singapore.
More than 42,000 foreign workers lost their jobs in 2002 and nearly 28,000 in 2003 while the local workforce increased by more than 19,000 in 2002 and nearly 15,000 in 2003.
More locals than foreigners have found work every year in the past decade except in 2007 and 2008. The number of foreign workers went up by 145,000 in 2007 and 157,000 in 2008, well over the number of locals hired — 90,400 in 2007 and 64,700 in 2008. Foreign workers made up the bulk of new hires in manufacturing and construction, as this table shows.
But local unemployment was still lower than in 2009. As the chart below shows, unemployment was 2.1 per cent overall and 3 per cent for locals in 2007 — and 2.2 per cent overall and 3.2 per cent for locals in 2008.
Unemployment rose to 3 per cent overall and 4.3 per cent for locals in 2009 — the highest since 2002, when joblessness reached 3.6 per cent with 4.8 per cent of the locals out of work. That was the aftermath of the 2001 recession. The foreign worker surge in 2007 and 2008 followed rapid economic growth— by 9.2 per cent in 2004, 7.6 per cent in 2005 and 8.7 per cent in 2006. The boom lasted till 2007, when the economy grew by 8.2 per cent, It faltered only in 2008, when it grew just 1.4 per cent, as this chart shows.
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