Singapore's unemployment rate up

Singapore: Singapore's unemployment rate edged up slightly to 2 percent in the second quarter after trending downwards for the past four quarters, the ministry of manpower said on Thursday.

Preliminary estimates showed that the overall unemployment rate edged up from 1.8 percent in March to 2 percent in June, Xinhua reported.

There were 3,633,500 employed people in June 2015. While 3,100 workers were laid off in this quarter, 3,500 were fired in the previous quarter, the ministry said.