Wen Jiawei, senior economist at Dah Sing Bank, said that the unemployment rate in Hong Kong from November to January was 3.9%, the same as that from October to December, the first flat after ten consecutive months of decline, and the market expected a rebound of 0.2 percentage points to 4.1%.
The unemployment rate in the catering industry rose to 6.2% from 5.9% in December, and the unemployment rate in arts, entertainment and recreational activities rose from 4% to 5.3%, which may reflect that social distancing measures began to tighten in January due to the introduction of Omicron to Hong Kong.
However, the construction industry (unemployment rate fell from 5.1% to 4.7%), transportation, warehouses, postal and express delivery, information and communication (from 4.8% to 4.1%) and financial and professional services related industries (from 2.8% to 2.6%) %), indicating that these industries may continue to benefit from the internal economic improvement in the second half of last year, partially offsetting the adverse impact on the labor market in the early stages of the fifth wave of the epidemic.
Wen Jiawei also said that the development of the epidemic in Hong Kong is still very uncertain. If social distancing measures are to be maintained for a longer period of time, it is not ruled out that the unemployment rate may return to around 5% in the first half of the year, and then fall below 4% in the second half of the year.