Gaming employment down 1.8pct

Some 85,400 people were employed by the gaming industry in Macau, down by 1.8 per cent in the period from November 2014 to January 2015 compared to 87,000 in the previous three-month period of October to December last year.
The latest figures released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) show that while employment in this sector dropped by just under 2 per cent, it was also the biggest source of employment here, accounting for 24.1 per cent of Macau’s total employment industry.
Employment by industry shows that the construction sector was the second largest employer at 14.6 per cent, followed by the hospitality industry at 13.7 per cent, wholesale and retail at 11.1 per cent, real estate and business at 7.8 per cent, and public administration at 6.8 per cent. Domestic work accounted for 5.7 per cent of the territory’s overall employment industry.
The biggest drop in the employment sector was registered in that of the hospitality industry, down 4.5 percent, meaning as many as 26,700 people were employed compared to 27,900 in the previous period. Following this sector was that of restaurants, which recorded a 2.3 per cent drop in the number of employees to 27,700 from 28,300.
As many as 58,200 people were employed in construction, down 1.4 per cent, while the retail trade employed a total of 35,000 people, down from 35,200, in the November 2014 to January 2015 period from the previous one.
Macau’s unemployment rate remained stable at 1.7 per cent from the November 2013 to January 2014 period.
The labour force here was 404,500, while the labour force participation rate dropped slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 74.3 per cent this period over 74.4 per cent in the previous period.
As many as 397,800 made up Macau’s total employment, down by 800; while the number of unemployed was 6,700, down 300 in the period in question. The underemployment rate also remained unchanged at 0.4 per cent from that of the previous period.
S.F.