RETRENCHMENT OF WOMEN WORKERS

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh asked the Minister for Manpower, in the recent economic crisis, how many women workers were retrenched; what kind of industries these women workers were retrenched from; and how soon afterwards did the Ministry succeed in finding job placements for them.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: A total of 7,131 workers were retrenched in the first quarter of this year. This is much higher than 4,278 retrenched in the last quarter of 1997. Among the local workers retrenched, 57% were women. 68% of retrenched women workers came from the manufacturing sector while another 32% came from services sector. 61% of the retrenched women workers were production and related workers, 23% were clerical and sales employees and the remaining 16% were professional and technical personnel.

The Ministry of Manpower's Employment Service Department (ESD) assists unemployed Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents to find jobs. However, not all retrenched workers seek ESD's assistance despite our efforts to be present at companies carrying out major retrenchment exercises. In fact, over the past 4 months, only an average of 870 job seekers a month registered for assistance at ESD. Out of these registrants, about 20% were retrenched workers. In most instances, the Department was able to refer them to prospective employers for job interviews.

However ESD had only been able to achieve 10% success rate in placing the job registrants. The low success rate is often a result of the mismatch between expectation of jobs seekers and requirements of prospective employers. Generally, workers with realistic expectations and who were prepared to make adjustments in respect of work patterns and changes to salary were more likely to secure re-employment.

With the economic slowdown, retrenched workers are taking longer to be re-employed. Based on CPF Board's records, 63% of the local workers retrenched in the last quarter of 1997 were re-employed as at March 1998. This is notably lower than the re-employment rate of 72% for the previous two quarters. Among the local workers retrenched in the last quarter of 1997, the females have a slightly lower re-employment rate at 62% compared with males at 64%.

The job vacancy rate which measures vacant posts as a percentage of total establishment strength has also fallen to 2.7% in March 1998 from 5.0% a year ago. As a result, retrenched workers will have fewer choice in alternative jobs.