NTUC chief says 12,668 job openings available at E2i
By S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 03 March 2009 1639 hrs

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SINGAPORE: About forty per cent of jobs available at Singapore's Employment and Employability Institute (E2i) are offering salaries of more than S$2,000.

The National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC's) secretary general, Lim Swee Say, added that these job openings form almost half of the 12,668 jobs openings which some employers had posted at the institute.

Mr Lim was speaking on Tuesday at an organisational learning conference on the challenges NTUC is facing to help workers.

The NTUC chief said the government's decision to introduce the S$4.5 billion Jobs Credit scheme is a strategic move.

Firstly, the scheme would help companies implement their flexible wage systems as far as possible. And secondly, the scheme would also help to strengthen the tripartite partnership between the government, employers and unions.

Mr Lim said under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR), more job seekers were coming forward to upgrade themselves. In fact, 7,500 had done so at E2i.

Mr Lim added that through the various employability camps, confidence levels of workers to adapt to new jobs improved tremendously.

He said: "While on one hand, we are seeing an increase in retrenchment, but yet at the same time, we are very determined to ensure that retrenchment does not necessarily mean unemployment.

"So our determination is to keep helping these job seekers, retrenched workers to go back for retraining under SPUR, and at the same time through the job matching services provided at E2i, the community development councils and various organisations, to go back to jobs as soon as possible."

The bigger challenge now is to redesign jobs so as to minimise the mismatch of not just skills but also expectations.

Mr Lim said: "What we hope is that as we go through this downturn, we can actually upturn the employment mobility of Singapore’s workers because job openings are there. What we have to overcome is the mismatch between the jobs and job seekers.

"Our biggest challenge today is to overcome and minimise structural unemployment. There are jobs and there are job seekers. How can we bring the two together by minimising the job gap, skills gap and more importantly the mindset and expectations gaps."

The latest sector to address the retraining needs of workers is the logistics sector, which said the collapse in world trade had severely affected transport and storage.

NTUC’s assistant secretary-general, Josephine Teo, said: "The logistics sector is an important contributor to the Singapore economy. It not only supports the global trans-shipment of goods, which is the basis of our port activities, it strengthens Singapore's position as a manufacturing and distribution hub.

"The sector employs 180,000 workers and contributes about nine per cent to the GDP. The recent global financial crisis had dampened business confidence and consumer spending. As a result, international trade had fallen.

"In Singapore, non-oil domestic exports fell sharply by 34.8 per cent in January this year compared to last year. While the news is sobering, we would all be better off if we stay positive, keep our spirits high, and focus our minds on weathering the downturn.

"The government's Resilience Package worth S$20.5 billion had been welcomed by businesses and workers alike. In particular, the Jobs Credit scheme would provide relief to companies which had been hit by lower volumes or revenues, and faced intense pressures to cut cost."

The Singapore Logistics Association is working with NTUC's Learning Hub to come up with programmes to address the training needs of its excess manpower.

- CNA/yt