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SINGAPORE : Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong has hinted that issues such as making it easier for low-wage workers to continue to upgrade themselves, and making the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme more accessible, will be tackled in the Budget later this month.
Mr Gan's visit to Nee Soon Central on Sunday comes hot on the heels of the Economic Strategies Committee's recommendations.
Among them are enhancing productivity levels in Singapore and scaling down dependence on foreign workers.
Mr Gan said: "We also have to bear in mind that we have to take into account business cycles, so when the economy is doing very well, you need to allow it to expand a little bit within some limits. As the economy comes down, you have to allow the foreign worker population to come down.
"In a recession, we have to monitor the situation and allow the foreign worker population to come down, but when the economy recovers, we have to be very careful, (and) calibrate our response carefully, otherwise you may stifle the economic recovery."
For now, an immediate priority for the tripartite partners is to improve the well-being of low-wage workers.
Mr Gan noted that low-wage workers do face some obstacles to go for training, and this was discovered from a survey of a group of such workers.
He said: "Some of the feedback that we get includes for example (the fact that) some of the older low-wage workers...do not have literacy or basic numeracy. Their language ability is low and so they are unable to absorb many of the training programmes.
"One of the key areas we have to focus on is how to improve the literacy and numeracy of these low-wage workers, so that they would be able to benefit from the higher level training that would give them really usable skills."
Mr Gan added: "Many of these low-wage workers depend a lot on overtime pay; some of them take part-time jobs and that means that if they go to study and (go for) training, they would have to stop work and forego some of the income.
"So the cost to them can be quite significant. So for these older low-wage workers, we have got to find a way to encourage them to help them to cope with a potential income loss if they were to give up their part-time job and concentrate on training.
"Some of them are unable to sustain their training programme. Sometimes, their training may last two or three weeks and sometimes one month. And it is not just one programme. They may have to go back for multiple modules so that they can continue to upgrade themselves. These low-wage workers sometimes...have a good job offer and they will decide to take up the job and will stop their training.
"By the time they come back to their training programme again, they have to start all over again. So we have to look at how we can help these low-wage workers pursue sustained training efforts, encourage them to go for the programme and complete the programme and also encourage them to upgrade regularly and consistently, not just once in a while whenever they are free."
The Manpower Minister also emphasised that employers are important players in encouraging low-wage workers to go for training and upgrading.
Mr Gan said that some employers find it challenging to send their workers for training. That is because employers need them to work and hence are less willing to send them for training.
Singaporeans also want to know if the payout for the Workfare Income Supplement can be tweaked.
Jeffrey Tong, a grassroots leader from Nee Soon Central, asked: "Is there a possibility that you can look into it, to fine tune it to give it out maybe on a more frequent basis, maybe monthly or twice monthly?"
Mr Gan said his Ministry is studying if the qualifying period for Workfare should be shortened.
To qualify, low-wage workers must have worked for at least three months in a six-month period during a calendar year, or at least six months in a year.
Mr Gan said: "Having discussed this at length with our tripartite partners, we feel that an important objective of Workfare is to encourage regular work.
"As part of the Workfare qualifying criteria, we will still require a minimum qualifying period and hopefully we encourage our Workfare recipients to go for regular work all the time, so that they can receive Workfare on a regular basis."
Mr Gan said a decision on this will be announced during the Budget session. - CNA/ms
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