Gaming industry driving labour force expansion

2014/11/28

From：Macau Business Daily

More people are entering the gaming industry. The sector saw the biggest growth in the number of employees between August and October of the year, up by 3.8 per cent, compared to the previous period, the latest figures released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) reveal.
The survey indicates that the total labour force reached 401,300 while total employment was 394,400 – up 2,300 – during the three months. The participation rate of the labour force, meanwhile, increased slightly by 0.2 percentage points to 74.2 per cent.
In fact, the unemployment rate of the city has remained unchanged again at 1.7 per cent in the period, with the underemployment rate 0.3 per cent.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry continues to occupy a big part of the city’s labour force, with the total number of employed workers in the industry reaching 84,600, an increase of 3,100 from the 81,500 of the previous period.
Restaurants and similar activities also engaged more of the labour force. According to the survey, there were a total of 28,500 workers in the industry between August and October, an increase of 2.8 per cent compared to the previous period. Moreover, the labour force in the retail trade also increased, by 0.9 per cent.
Construction plus hotel and similar activities saw a depletion in their labour force in these three months, which decreased by 0.5 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, compared to the previous period.
Of the employed population, 24.1 per cent are in recreational, cultural, gaming & other service industries. Some 14.2 per cent are in hotels, restaurants & similar activities, while the construction industry occupies some 14.1 per cent of the population.
In addition, the wholesale & retail trade attracted 11.4 per cent of the total employment population while some 7.7 per cent of the population works in real estate & business activities.
Only some 6.6 per cent toil in public administration and social security. Domestic work, on the other hand, attracted 5.6 percent of the labour force. Other industries accounted for the remaining 16.3 percent of the total employed population from August to October.

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