Govt to partner two foreign agencies to help active jobseekers
Reuters file photo
SINGAPORE — In the next three months, the Government will tie up with private sector employment agencies — which have been working with governments in the United Kingdom and Australia — to help secure jobs for two groups of workers: Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who have been made redundant, as well as jobseekers in general who have been unemployed for at least three months.
Announcing the initiative yesterday, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say said that two overseas-based employment agencies — which will be named later — have been selected “because of their business focus on active jobseekers ... rather than passive jobseekers, where the jobs are looking for the workers”.
Mr Lim said the Ministry of Manpower had explored options here and abroad, before settling on these agencies. The partnership will be launched in the second quarter of the year.
In Australia, for example, the government launched the “jobactive” programme in 2015, where active jobseekers are connected to employers through a network of employment agencies across the country. These employment agencies — known as “jobactive providers” — work with employers to understand their recruitment needs, and help jobseekers prepare themselves for available jobs in the market. They also provide support for employees after they start work, as they settle into their new job.
Employment agencies in Singapore told TODAY that they tend to focus on headhunting, based on the vacancies that companies approach them to fill. Some of the challenges of helping active jobseekers secure employment include a smaller pool to tap into, and a perception among employers that those who are out of a job are less desirable as prospective hires.
“We typically work directly with clients to help them recruit qualified talent to fill specific roles that need hiring support. As such, we will generally engage candidates when we are working on a recruitment project for our clients,” said Randstad Singapore country director Jaya Dass.
Robert Half Singapore managing director Matthieu Imbert-Bouchard estimated that three in four jobseekers under their radar are “passive”. The pool of passive jobseekers is simply much wider than active ones, he said.
Michael Page Singapore director Jeffrey Ng added that companies want to have the best talent, and they would eye top performers among their competitors’ ranks. But the employment agency has been trying to coach companies to consider soft skills such as attitude, instead of paper qualifications and technical skills.
When it comes to filling vacancies, ManpowerGroup Singapore marketing director Josh Goh names skill set as a make-or-break factor. “If people are unemployed, it depends on whether their skills were relevant in the first place. It could have been one of the reasons they were let off, and it’ll be challenging to place these PMETs,” he said.
In fast-paced industries such as information technology and digital marketing, being out of a job for three months could result in one’s skill set becoming obsolete, Mr Goh noted. And in the current climate, companies have tightened their purse strings and are cautious about hiring the wrong candidates, he added.
