MACAO -- Macao's general unemployment rate from June to August 2018 was 1.8 percent, the unemployment rate of local residents stood at 2.4 percent, the special administrative region's statistic service said on Saturday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that all three indicators held stable as in the previous period from May to July 2018.

Total labor force was 392,100 for the period and the labor force participation rate was 71.0 percent. Total employment was 385,000 and number of employed residents totalled 283,700, down by 500 and 600 respectively from the previous period.

Analyzed by industry, employment in hotels, restaurants and the construction sector registered decreases while that in recreational, cultural, gaming and other services increased.

Number of the unemployed was 7,100, similar to that in the previous period. With fresh graduates entering the labour market, the proportion of fresh labor force entrants searching for their first job increased by 4.9 percentage points to 21 percent of the total unemployed.

In comparison with the same period in 2017, the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate dropped by 0.5 and 0.2 percentage points respectively while the underemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point.