Gainfully occupied population up by 4% in March 2016

Administrative data provided by JobsPlus (formerly known as ETC) show that over a period of one year, persons registered as working on a full-time basis increased by 2.8%, reaching 180,401. This was mainly attributed to an increase in the full-time gainfully occupied population, which went up by 6,803, and a drop in registered unemployment, which fell by 1,861.

Increases in full-time employment in March 2016 were recorded mostly in sectors related to arts, entertainment and recreation and administrative and support service activities when compared to March 2015. Registered full-time employment in the private sector went up by 6,513 persons, reaching 132,017. Public sector full-time employment, on the other hand, increased by 290 persons, reaching to 44,351.

Compared to March of last year, the number of persons registered as full-time self-employed rose by 398, while the number of persons registered as employees increased by 6,405. Full-time employment for males and females went up by 2.9% and 5.9% respectively over 2015 levels.

Registered part-time employment in March 2016 went up by 6.3% when compared to a year earlier. The sectors that contributed most to the overall increase were accommodation and food service activities, wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles and professional, scientific and technical activities.

The number of part-timers who also held a full-time job amounted to 24,245, which is an increase of 6.5% when compared to the corresponding month in 2015. Employed persons whose part-time job was their primary occupation increased by 2,024 persons, or 6.2%, totalling to 34,798 when compared to 2015.