Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Latest MOM figures show hiring demand up, with services leading the way

Latest MOM figures show hiring demand up, with services leading the way
By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 23 December 2009 2122 hrs

SINGAPORE: Latest figures from the Manpower Ministry show that hiring is definitely on an upward trend.

Taking the lead was the service industries, with 26,000 openings in the third quarter. That's 30 per cent higher compared to the previous three months.

With the integrated resorts opening next year and new malls popping up on Orchard Road, demand for retail and hospitality staff is high.

As of September there were 1,200 openings for shop assistants and close to 1,400 vacancies for waiters and cooks.

Dhirendra Shantilal, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Kelly Services, said: "Because of the festive seasons that we have right now\ for Christmas and Chinese New Year, we see a lot of contract work coming on for the retail space. This will adjust itself after Chinese New Year."

The construction industry is also in need of close to 3,000 workers, including 780 labourers.

Construction and retail sales are two areas that normally have difficulty attracting Singaporeans. Recruiters said the impact of the recession has softened the resistance some Singaporeans have against retail jobs. But whether this will hold up as the economy continues to improve remains a big question mark.

Hiring in the financial services sector has also been picking up pace and recruiters are seeing "significant" recovery across sales, risk management and IT positions within the sector.

Roger Olofsson, associate director, Information Technology, Robert Walters, said: "A lot of organisations are getting headcounts approved and gearing u with sentiments and confidence in for the new year and they want to be up to staff levels that they potentially had in place before the crisis happened."

“We're actually seeing Q4 at the moment. It's busier this year than any Q4 we've experienced so far in the last 10, 11 years that we've operated in that market."

And with the government ramping up hiring of teachers and early childhood educators, there are 2,750 openings for teaching professionals.

Of these, 2320 openings require at least a polytechnic diploma.

Openings in the manufacturing sector also point to a steady recovery.

As of September, there were 5,600 positions available, up from nearly 3,900 as of June.

- CNA/vm

- wong chee tat :)

System Updates

Currently still monitoring and accessing systems that are using Google Public DNS and other publicly available DNS.

- wong chee tat :)

Tomato 1.27

Submitted by jon on Sun, 2009-11-29 11:44

Version 1.27
  • Fix DDNS "-1" error when service used HTTPS.
»Download

Upgraded.
 
- wong chee tat :)

Tomato 1.26

Submitted by jon on Thu, 2009-11-26 22:43 Version 1.26
  • Allow a different port to be entered in Basic:Network:Static DNS (enter as "ip:port"). Be aware that dnsmasq must act as the DNS server (the default setting) when not using the normal port 53.
  • Allow DHCP to serve the user-entered gateway (in Basic:Network) if the option in Advanced:DHCP is enabled.
  • Do not start miniupnpd early to avoid warning messages.
  • Update Australian DST (need to re-select), add Darwin, Brisbane TZ. Thanks to Peter O. for the info.
  • Avoid double loading of tomato.css
  • Fix possible null dereference in sendpage
  • Collapsed all menus. For the old look, set nvram: "web_mx=status,bwm,tools"
  • Obscured some key/password fields when not in focus.
  • Accept more than two MAC addresses per IP address (ex: one IP for a laptop either wired or wireless [one at a time]). Note: Some computers may not like seeing the same IP unless it's restarted.
  • Added LED options back in Admin:Buttons/LED.
  • Added ID for WLA2-G54L, TrueMobile 2300 thanks to Nick B. and David J.
  • Added EditDNS thanks to Keith M.
  • Added UTC+4:30 Kabul time zone.
  • Fixed port set validation allowed more than what could be handled.
  • Allow rstats to log if WAN port is used for LAN.
  • Update dnsmasq to 2.51, miniupnpd 1.4, busybox 1.14.4, matrixssl 1.8.8. 

- wong chee tat :)