Job hunt: The number of vacancies provided by the private sector totalled 16,200 in December.

Employment and vacancies in most selected major sectors continued to go down in December.

The Census & Statistics Department said today the number of manual workers at construction sites showed the largest decline at 13.3%. 

The manufacturing sector also slid 9.1%. Sub-sectors with notable decreases in employment were communications (18.3%), restaurants (6.5%), as well as finance and insurance (5.6%).

Employment in the community, social and personal services sector and the financing, insurance, real estate and business service sector went up 4.5% and 1.7% respectively. Sub-sectors with moderate increases were real estate (8.2%) and business services (5.1%).

In December, the wholesale, retail and import/export trades, restaurants and hotels sector was the largest sector in terms of employment, with 983,000 persons engaged.

This was followed by the financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector, engaging 441,300 people.  The community, social and personal services sector engaged 402,600 persons.

On vacancies, the total number available in the private sector dropped 5.5% from 17,200 in December 2001 to 16,200 in December last year.

Of these, 3,720 were from the community, social and personal services sector; 3,020 from the import and export trades; and 1,610 from the financing and insurance.

Analysed by major occupation category, private sector vacancies were mainly observed for associate professionals (accounting for 34% of the vacancies), clerks (21%) as well as service workers and shop sales workers (19%).