With the economy in Hong Kong beginning to recover, the labour market is expected to improve slowly in 2010 and the unemployment rate will further decrease.
According to the quarterly Hong Kong macroeconomic forecast announced by the University of Hong Kong, the overall labour market is anticipated to improve this year, with the unemployment rate to decrease from 5.1% in Q4 2009 to 5.0% in the current quarter. In the second half of 2009, unemployment in construction improved significantly with the unemployment rate decreasing from 11.8% in June to 7.6% in November 2009. This improvement is expected to continue with the commencement of infrastructure projects.
The number of jobless workers is expected to drop by 3,000 to 186,000 in Q1 of 2010. The number of jobs is forecast to increase by 12,000 in the current quarter, bringing the labour force up to 3.7 million.
Dr Alan Siu, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Institution of Economics and Business Strategy at HKU, comments that services industry has a high demand for manpower in Hong Kong and therefore it has helped lower the unemployment rate a little bit.
He expects the real GDP of Hong Kong to increase by 4%-5% for the current year, and the unemployment rate to drop to 4.5% by year-end.
