College degree can be a handicap after 50 in Singapore

It's the end of the year. "Spare a thought for 60,000 jobless in climate of job growth," reported The Straits Times newspaper in Singapore yesterday.

It was referring to the latest government statistics which showed a record number of jobs created this year -- "the economy added 124,500 workers" in the first nine months of the year, said the Ministry of Manpower report -- but 60,700 people were still unemployed. They made up less than 2.5 per cent of the total workforce.

How did we arrive at this figure? Simple. The working population totalled more than 2.4 million including 1.6 million in the service sector and more than 500,000 in manufacturing, according to the Ministry of Manpower. If one includes the number of jobless people, then Singapore had an available workforce of just over 2.5 million. Now, 60,700 out of 2.5 million comes to less than 2.5 per cent.

That's low by any standards. The report said three out of four people were re-employed within six months. But some had it better than others. Among the older workers, for example, the better educated found it more difficult to get new jobs than the less educated. The report said:

"The re-employment rate for older degree holders aged 50 and over improved strongly to 74% in September 2006... However, it remained below the rate for those with secondary (81%), upper secondary (79%) and diploma (91%) qualifications in the same age group."

So a university degree can be a handicap if, after the age of 50, one has to look for a job in Singapore.

By the way, the workforce includes adolescents as young as 15 years old, according to the government report.

For the total picture, download the reports Labour Market, Third Quarter 2006 and Employment, Third Quarter 2006, from the Ministry of Manpower website.