Crying out for staff
Macau's labour shortage affects not only the gaming and hospitality industries, but also sectors such as retail, transport, telecommunications and storage.
With a population of about 440,000 people, Macau has traditionally had relatively few retail outlets.
The sector has expanded to cater for the growing number of tourists and gamblers arriving there, but now faces a shortage of sales staff.
Data from the Macau statistics bureau showed that the retail sector had 1,264 vacancies in June this year, 39.2 per cent of which required upper secondary education or above.
In the year to June, average salaries climbed 4.7 per cent to 5,714 patacas.
There were 555 job openings in the transport, telecommunications and storage sectors in June, according to the statistics bureau. Among these vacancies, 28.3 per cent required upper secondary education or above.
As for language skills, 50.8 per cent of the vacancies in the retail sector required knowledge of Putonghua. In the transport, telecoms and storage sectors, 68.4 per cent of vacancies required Putonghua.
Sio Chi-wai, vice-president of the Macau Importers and Exporters Association and a retailer of sports apparel and footwear, said his fellow retailers were focusing their energy on retaining their most experienced employees.
'Because we're an industry with a low entry barrier, employees with one year of experience become an integral part of our daily operations,' he was quoted as saying by the Chinese-language Macao Daily News.
'Our focus now is how to reward them satisfactorily so they will stay,' Mr Sio added.
