Private sector job vacancies surged 18% to 37,980 in June, over the same month last year.

The majority of the selected sectors also recorded increases, such as real estate (53%), retail trade (36%), medical, health and related services (36%) and education services and research institutes (35%). Yet a few saw falls, more notably welfare and community services (-12%), and sanitary and similar services (-8%).

Of the 37,980 private sector vacancies, 8,310 were from the import-export trade, 4,550 from financing and insurance, 4,120 from business services, 3,260 from the retail trade, and 3,230 from recreational and other personal services.

Analysed by major occupation category, private sector vacancies were observed mainly for associate professionals (13,470), for clerks (8,040), and for service workers and shop sales workers (7,340).

Employment grows 2.6%

In June, the selected sectors as a whole employed 2,327,300 people, up 2.6% over a year before. The import-export trade engaged 507,400, the retail trade with 224,600, the business services with 207,800, and restaurants with 188,200.

Employment in most of the selected sectors rose, such as manufacturing (-8.8%), hotels and boarding houses (-6.9%), construction sites (-6.4%) and business services (-5.9%), recreational and other personal services (18.7%), financing and insurance (6.7%), real estate (6%), hotels and boarding houses (4.7%) and wholesale trade (4.6%).

But falls were recorded at construction sites (-14.2%) and in the manufacturing sector (-4.5%).