Macao’s stretched elderly care sector has added 68 full-time employees to its workforce since the first quarter of last year, according to the latest Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages by Statistics and Census Service (known by its Portuguese initials DSEC).
The additions brought its total number of full-time employees up to 1,493, a 4.8 percent year-on-year increase. In March, their average monthly earnings came in at 17,050 patacas, up 1.2 percent year-on-year. The quarterly survey – which also covered the manufacturing, utilities, hotel and restaurant sectors – doesn’t include part-time employees or volunteers, or specify roles.
In April last year, the welfare organisation Caritas told media that Macao had a dire shortage of caregivers for the elderly. Its secretary-general noted that job postings for local caregivers typically failed to receive a single applicant, while the number of elderly folk waiting for home care services kept growing. Earlier this year, Lawmaker Lo Choi In said that rising salary levels in the mainland made attracting non-resident care workers to Macao difficult.
[See more: Macao’s unemployment rate edges higher in the first quarter]
The DSEC noted meanwhile that the hotel sector’s workforce saw the most year-on-year growth (7.2 percent) out of the sectors this survey covered. At the end of March, hotels employed 60,482 full-time workers who were being paid 20,090 patacas per month on average (a salary slip of 1.9 percent).
The electricity, gas and water supply sector employed 1,088 full time workers at the end of the quarter (up 4.8 percent), while the restaurant and manufacturing sectors employed 23,381 (down 2.6 percent) and 7,402 (down 5.6 percent) respectively. Average earnings in those three sectors respectively was 31,140 patacas, 12,690 patacas and 10,540 patacas.
The DSEC also noted that employee turnover rates for hotels and restaurants had improved slightly year-on-year, and were now sitting at 3 percent and 4.8 percent respectively.
