Singapore, Mar 15 (IANS): Total employment growth in Singapore grew by 0.9 percent last year, making it the slowest growth since 2003 when it was negative 0.6 percent, the latest statistics by the manpower ministry revealed on Tuesday.

Total employment growth was 32,300, and this slowed from the 3-4 percent growth between 2011 and 2014, the ministry said in its Labour Market 2015 report.

Local employment growth was flat for the whole of 2015 after high growth in the previous two years, while foreign employment growth moderated to 31,600, or 2.3 percent.

Excluding foreign domestic workers, the number is 22,600, Channel News Asia quoted the report as saying.

On a quarterly basis, the fourth quarter overall unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percentage point to 1.9 percent, with residents at 2.9 percent and citizens at 3 percent in December 2015.

For the whole of 2015, unemployment stayed low, averaging 1.9 percent for overall, 2.8 percent for residents and 2.9 percent for citizens.

There were also fewer jobs available last year, given the softer economic conditions and continued efforts to restructure towards a more productive and manpower-lean economy.

While the number of vacancies remained higher than job seekers, the ratio had moderated to 113 job openings for every 100 job seekers in December 2015, from 116 in September 2015 and 142 in December 2014, the report showed.