Singapore is experiencing a surge of employment this quarter, with strong growth recorded in the services, construction and manufacturing sectors.

According to government statistics, total employment rose by 32,300 people to reach 3,191,200. All figures are preliminary estimates.

The quarter follows an entire year of three-month periods during which the number of people in jobs went up.

The services industry saw a rise of 21,900, while construction employment increased by 6,600 and manufacturing saw growth of 3,500.

Globally, Singapore has one of the highest rates of employment. Some 77 per cent of the population aged between 25 and 64 was employed last year; a figure higher than any other newly industrialized economy in the Asian region.

For the third quarter of 2011, unemployment dropped to two per cent from 2.1 per cent. Redundancies stayed "low", the government has said, with 2,000 layoffs; this compares to 2,020 in the preceding three months. The sector with the highest number of redundancy was services, followed by manufacturing and construction.