Singapore's seasonally-adjusted overall unemployment rate edged down from 2.2 percent to 2.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to the Labor Market Report Second Quarter 2022 released by the Ministry of Manpower on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the seasonally-adjusted resident unemployment rate fell to 2.8 percent in June from 3 percent in March, and the citizen unemployment rate fell to 3 percent from 3.2 percent.

In July 2022, unemployment rates remained steady at pre-COVID levels of 2.1 percent overall, 2.9 percent for residents, and 3 percent for citizens.

Singapore's resident long-term unemployment rate, which measures persons who are unemployed for at least 25 weeks, declined to 0.7 percent in June 2022. This is a decline for the third consecutive quarter, and the rate in June is similar to its pre-COVID quarterly average in 2018 and 2019.

According to the report, Singapore's total employment, excluding migrant domestic workers, saw a robust growth of 66,500 in the second quarter of 2022, significantly higher than the 42,000 in the first quarter. The growth was supported by greater increases in non-resident employment as the significant easing of border restrictions enabled sectors with a higher share of non-residents to back-fill their positions.

The number of job vacancies dipped slightly for the first time in June 2022, following seven consecutive quarters of strong increases. Nonetheless, the seasonally-adjusted level of 126,100 job vacancies in June remained at historically high levels.