It may be several months after the lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions, but Macao’s nonresident worker population is still languishing more than 35,000 below its pre-pandemic peak. That’s according to new figures from the Labour Affairs Bureau.
The statistics show that there were 161,508 nonresident workers in the territory in May, up slightly from the 158,202 in April but still well below the 196,539 recorded in December 2019, and just 9,630 more than the population of 151,878 registered in January.
Most of the increase was accounted for by workers from mainland China, who grew in number from 110,493 in April to 113,016 in May.
Of the largest foreign worker communities, those from the Philippines grew slightly month to month, from 24,573 to 24,939, but the number of Vietnamese remained static at just over 7,250.
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The Indonesian worker population grew from 5,029 to 5,220, as did the number of workers from Myanmar, rising from 2,760 in April to 2,839 in May.
Macao’s labour shortage is well documented and analysts have said that the overall lack of workers – as well as a shortage of the right kinds of workers – is slowing the city’s post-pandemic recovery,
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2020 found that just 14 percent of the city’s non-gaming workforce could be classed as “high-skilled.”
Last month, legislator Ron Lam told Singapore’s Channel News Asia that migration was also an issue. “Some saw opportunities in foreign countries and eventually migrated. The younger generations choose to study abroad and some are not coming back to work after graduation,” he said.
