NUMBER OF RETRENCHMENTS

Mr Ling How Doong asked the Minister for Labour, from 1994 up to the latest available date in January 1995, how many companies have retrenched their staff, what is the total number of workers affected and which are the companies involved.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Based on our surveys, 210 companies retrenched their workers during the first nine months of 1994. This was less than the 228 companies recorded during the same period in 1993. However, retrenchment exercises in 1994 involved a larger number of workers resulting in 5,487 workers being retrenched as compared to 4,422 for the same period of nine months in 1993. The companies involved include AT & T Consumer Products, Thomson Television Singapore, Mitsubishi Electronic Manufacturing and Shintom Electronic. About half of the retrenched workers were from the electrical and electronics industry.

Preliminary figures for the last quarter of 1994 show that there were at least 24 companies which retrenched another 2,256 workers, making a total of 7,743 workers retrenched for the whole year. Hence, the total number of retrenched workers in 1994 would be higher than the 6,487 workers retrenched by 305 companies in 1993.

From our feedback, many of those retrenched have no difficulty finding jobs. As part of our Ministry's employment assistance programme, the Employment Service has offered to help the retrenched workers to look for alternative employment. It is also common for companies involved in a retrenchment exercise to help their retrenched workers by contacting the potential employers and arranging for them to be interviewed for suitable jobs. In our current tight labour market, workers who are not choosy should have no difficulty finding alternative employment.