RETRAINING OF AGED FRATERNITY TO REJOIN WORKFORCE

RETRAINING OF AGED FRATERNITY TO REJOIN WORKFORCE: 5.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what are the challenges faced in (i) retraining and helping the aged fraternity to rejoin the workforce; and (ii) encouraging employers to recreate jobs; and (b) what are the measures planned or in place to encourage more employers to embrace job re-creation for older employees.

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The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Gan Kim Yong) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, Sir, the challenges to enhancing the employability of older workers are multifaceted. We need to shape employers’ mindsets towards older workers and encourage them to recruit and retain older workers. At the same time, we also need to help our older workers stay competitive by keeping their skills up to date and relevant.

The Tripartite Committee on the Employability of Older Workers, in its interim report released last year, recommended several key initiatives to improve the employability of older workers. These include promoting age-friendly employment practices, such as the re-creation of jobs for older workers through job re-design, automation and the modification of job roles. Last year, NTUC, SNEF and WDA successfully assisted more than 12,000 workers under the Job Re-Creation Programme (JRP). About half of them were mature workers.

The Tripartite Action Group (TAG) was set up last year to facilitate sharing of best practices among companies to re-create jobs and raise productivity. Companies requiring resources to undertake these initiatives can also tap on the ADVANTAGE! scheme. So far, approximately $8 million has been committed to companies under the scheme.

These initiatives, coupled with the strong economic growth in the past year, have helped boost the employment rate of older residents in Singapore. Between 2004 and 2006, the resident employment rate of those aged 55 to 59 improved from 55.9% to 60.6% while that for those aged between 60 and 64 rose significantly from 33.6% in 2004 to 41.9% in 2006. Both are at record high levels.

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The Tripartite Committee will be releasing its final report shortly. The Committee will recommend additional initiatives to facilitate the employment of older workers. We will continue our efforts to work with the tripartite partners to enhance older workers’ employability.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: I would like to ask the Minister of State how many companies to date have embarked on the Job Re-Creation Programme. What is the target that the Ministerial Committee on Ageing has in mind to encourage more employers to participate in job re-creation? Also, how will the Ministerial Committee on Ageing work with other agencies to promote employability of the older workforce? And in the midst of these 12,000 workers who have gone through the job re-creation training, how many of them are actually from the PMET category?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, Sir, as of 31st December 2006, some 300 companies have committed, under the ADVANTAGE! scheme, to employ and re-employ mature workers beyond the age of 62. Many of these companies have already put in place employment practices that are age-friendly with the help of the ADVANTAGE! scheme. We will continue to work with the tripartite partners to reach out to more companies and to encourage them to make a commitment to recruit as well as to retain these older workers.

Mdm Ho also asked how do we work with other partners. In fact, tripartite collaboration is a key cornerstone of our success so far in reaching out to the older workers. WDA will, together with NTUC as well as the employers' associations, work together and reach out to the older workers, encourage the employers to change their mindset to be pro-older workers and, at the same time, we also want to reach out to the workers to prepare them to be more flexible and to

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equip them with skills that are up to date and relevant so that they can remain competitive and employable. We will continue to do so together with our tripartite partners.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Hong Kah): I would like to pick on Mdm Ho's point. How many of these programmes are targeted at the PMET category for the older workers, especially those above 62?

Mr Gan Kim:

Yong: Mr Speaker, our programmes cater to all the workers and a significant number of them are PMETs. They come from different career paths. We do job re-creation and, at the same time, we also conduct retraining for them so that their skills can be applicable in other areas that are more relevant in today's economy.

Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo (East Coast): Sir, regarding PMETs as well as re-employability of older workers, is there also tracking of salary and are they worse off if they are doing similar types of jobs?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: We have to recognise that the priority for us is to ensure that they are employable, and as they are employed, their remuneration or salary must reflect their competency as well as the performance and the value of the job. With the growth of the economy, I think the job market is very healthy. We have created a significant number of jobs, a large proportion of them are PMET jobs, and therefore we believe that they will receive commensurate remuneration according to the jobs that were taken. At the same time, we have also recently introduced the professional conversion programme (PCP) to allow PMETs to convert to new jobs that are in demand. But, of course, for some of the jobs that are becoming less and less relevant in this knowledge economy, these jobs will become less competitive. So we want to

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help them to acquire an occupation that is more relevant to today's economy and PCP is one programme that we have introduced recently to help them achieve this.