Unsurprisingly, Singapore's job market softened significantly between March and June - which covered most of the circuit breaker period, when a lot of economic activity came to a standstill. But the Ministry of Manpower's second-quarter labour market report this week was not all bad news. Although there were job cuts in all sectors, some proved more resilient, and there was even net job creation in some areas. The headline numbers were, as expected, grim. Between March and June, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent for Singaporeans and from 3.3 per cent to 3.8 per cent for residents. Total employment (excluding foreign domestic workers) fell by 103,500, the sharpest quarterly contraction on record. This should not be a surprise, given that Singapore has never had a three-month-long economic shutdown before.

Retrenchments more than doubled from the first quarter, although the numbers were lower than in past recessionary peaks. The incidence of retrenchments, as a proportion of relative workforce size, was lower for local employees than for foreigners, partly the result of the fact that wage subsidies in the form of the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) were confined to local employees. While unemployment rose across all age and education groups, it was striking that some were significantly more affected than others. Notably, the unemployment rate was higher among residents 30 years of age and below and 60 years and above, and among those without tertiary education.