Samoa has recorded the third quarter of positive growth in employment following negative growths since the June 2017 quarter.

As highlighted in the Samoa Bureau of Statistics Employment Statistics report for the December 2018 quarter, employment numbers increased in December 2018 by 1.1 percent compared to same quarter the previous year. 

This increase follows a positive revised growth of 2.0 percent in the September 2018 quarter. 

The positive growth is attributed to the increase in employment opportunities in industries such as restaurants, education, transport, other business services, personal services, food manufacturing, finance services and public administration with increases of 27 percent, 22.5 percent, 7.1 percent, 7 percent, 6.5 percent, 5.4 percent, 5.3 percent, 5.1 percent and 4.9 percent. 

In December 2018, the services sector was the biggest employer accounting for 63.7 percent of the total formal population. Public administration was the second with 24 percent, followed by the secondary sector with 11.1 percent and 1.1 percent of the total employed in the primary sector. 

In terms of employment by sector, public administration numbers went up by 5.4 percent, primary sector increased its numbers by 24.4 percent and the tertiary sector employment also increased by 1.4 percent in the December 2018 quarter. The secondary sector contributed a 10.1 negative growth. 

At the industry level, majority of the formal sector employment was in the Public Administration, which made up about 24 percent of the total, of which 46.9 percent were males and 53.1 percent females. 

Commerce, which is the biggest contributor to the country's gross domestic product, employed 14.3 percent of the total number of people employed. 

Other services employed about 11.1 percent, transport, accommodation and personal services employed 8.2 percent, 6.6. percent and 5.8 percent respectively, with industries in the primary, agriculture and fishing sectors only employed 0.6 and 0.5 percent respectively. 

The industries that recorded high percentages of males to females employees were construction, fishing, agriculture, electricity, water, transport, food manufacturing, other manufacturing, other business services, commerce and communication. Females dominated education, health, finance services and public administration.