Retail sector jobless rate rises to 5.4pc

The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said today that on a year-on-year comparison, Hong Kong’s unemployment rate was 0.3 percentage point higher, with employment dipping for the 16th consecutive period.

He was responding to the June to August period when both the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate and the underemployment rate was unchanged at 3.4 percent and 1.4 percent.

Cheung said the retail sector was particularly hard hit by the fall in tourist spending and lackluster local consumption, with its unemployment rate up by 0.9 percentage point over a year earlier to 5.4 percent.