For all the selected major sectors taken together, private sector job vacancies surged 28.9% to 20,900 in December, over the same month in 2002.

A majority of the selected sectors also recorded increases, such as business services (86%), restaurants (63.5%), retail trade (60.5%) and import/export trade (48.1%).

Yet a few saw falls, more notably communications services (-17.5%) and wholesale trade (-16.4%).

Of the 20,900 private sector vacancies, 4,470 were from the import-export trade, 3,900 from the community, social and personal services sector, 2,730 from business services, 2,370 from the retail trade, and 2,230 from financing and insurance services.

Analysed by major occupation category, private sector vacancies were observed mainly for associate professionals (7,790), for service workers and shop sales workers (4,880) and for clerks (3,550).

Employment grows in personal services

Employment in most of the selected sectors fell, such as manufacturing (-8.8%), hotels and boarding houses (-6.9%), construction sites (-6.4%) and business services (-5.9%).

Nevertheless, some increases were seen in the community, social and personal services sector (3.5%), retail trade (2.9%) and communications services (1%).

The import/export trade engaged 490,700 people, followed by the community, social and personal services sector which engaged 416,500, retail trade with 217,100, and business services with 190,200.

On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison, while total employment in the selected major sectors rose only marginally by 1.2%, total vacancies showed a notable rise of 11.6%.