ASSISTANCE TO THE UNEMPLOYED

Column: 33

ASSISTANCE TO THE UNEMPLOYED: 11.

Mr Ong Ah Heng asked the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) if he will provide statistics of those people who have lost their jobs during this economic downturn and (b) in the light of economic restructuring what are the measures being taken by the new Workforce Development Agency (WDA) to help them find new employment.

Column: 34

Dr Ng Eng Hen: Mr Speaker, Sir, there are initial signs that the employment situation may turn around soon. Some 25,800 workers were retrenched in 2001 and about 19,000 workers were retrenched in 2002. Last year, based on my Ministry's survey on private sector establishments employing at least 25 workers, for the first nine months (we have only data for the first nine months of last year), some 13,600 were retrenched. So the number seems to be coming down. More importantly though, the number of workers laid off declined to 4,100 in the third quarter of last year; it was down about 21% compared to the preceding quarter. Another positive indicator of a possible turnaround on the employment front is the growth of employment by 900 - it is not a big number - but it signals the first quarter of employment growth as compared to eight preceding quarters of decline.

Among workers retrenched in the first nine months of last year, 6,000 were from the manufacturing sector, mainly from the electronics industry. The services industries retrenched another 6,800 workers, led by the wholesale and retail trade, transport and communications, and financial services. Other industries which laid off workers included business and real estate services (about 1,100) and hotels and restaurants (300). The construction industry had 500 retrenchments.

Mr Ong Ah Heng asked in light of the economic restructuring, what measures have been taken by the new Workforce Development Agency. The Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) was formed in September last year with the mandate to help Singaporeans find, prepare for and keep jobs. Accordingly, WDA has employed several strategies to fulfill its mission. Firstly, it has identified where the jobs are through working

Column: 35

closely with industries, as well as economic agencies such as EDB. Over the past three months, the Agency has sourced for some 4,600 immediate vacancies in the manufacturing and logistics sectors,

and another 4,600 immediate vacancies in the services sectors. The Agency puts out to the public information on these existing job vacancies, the wages for these jobs and skills training programmes that will help job seekers acquire skills for these jobs, through the mass media and various job fairs. This will help job seekers in their job search.

Secondly, the WDA will help match Singaporeans to job vacancies. The WDA invested some $4.9 million to enhance its job matching services under the Distributed CareerLink Network Programme (DCN). It trained the officers at these centres to provide career coaching to job seekers. The Agency has also worked with NTUC to train some 200 union leaders and Industrial Relations Officers as job counsellors to help retrenched workers transit to a new job. It intends to do the same with the Community Development Councils to train community volunteers as job counsellors. Since December of last year, all job centres under DCN could tap into a national job bank and job-seeker database that will help DCN partners better assist job-seekers. In other words, we now have an integrated national system where you can key in information in the various job centres, whether it is NTUC, CDCs or the self-help groups, and there is a common platform. That is a national job bank as well.

Has it worked? Or has it bettered result? The placement performance of DCN centres, I am happy to report, has improved. **** When we first started in December 2001, we placed about 500 Singaporeans per month into jobs. Currently, the DCN partners chalk up an average of 1,400 successful job

Column: 36

placements per month. For the first six-month period between June and November 2003, some 13,000 Singaporeans have been placed into jobs through our programmes and the People-for-Jobs Traineeship Programme (PJTP), through NTUC, CDCs and self-help groups.

WDA has developed new ways to more effectively prepare job seekers for jobs. For instance, they started the Job Preparation Exercises for the electronic sector to help job seekers understand the clean room protocol in wafer fabrication plants and to test them for colour blindness. Literacy and numeracy tests were also included. The placement rate of job seekers in electronics jobs has more than doubled after the application of Job Preparation Exercises. And these exercises will be extended to other sectors as well.

The Agency has also initiated programmes to equip Singaporeans with new skills for jobs that are available. In the short space of three months, it has launched a number of new Place and Train programmes in the domestic cleaning, precision engineering, wafer fabrication, textile and healthcare sectors. In addition, the WDA has partnered SNEF in the Training for Employment scheme. Under this scheme, employers, through SNEF, can tap on a $1 million fund set aside by WDA to develop training courses to re-skill jobless Singaporeans to fill their vacancies.

The Agency will also help redesign jobs to create higher value per job that will allow better pay to attract Singaporeans. For instance, the National Environment Agency has worked with WDA to increase the productivity of cleaners through mechanisation and redesign of work processes. This has led to higher pay for cleaners and more Singaporeans taking up these jobs.

Column: 37

The results of these programmes are encouraging given the difficult labour market conditions last year. These initial successes will motivate WDA and its social partners further in implementing more programmes to help Singaporeans get jobs and bring down unemployment.