Addressing Public Anxiety over Job Security and Re-employment Challenges

6 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Manpower in light of public concerns about increased retrenchments in 2023 (a) whether he can elaborate on the Government’s approach to address anxieties over job security, economic stability and impact on families, especially considering high living costs and global challenges; and (b) what measures are in place to address ongoing re-employment challenges faced by retrenched senior workers over age discrimination and job disruption from rapid technological advancement.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Tan See Leng): Mr Speaker, the increase in retrenchments in 2023, including several high-profile retrenchment exercises, has understandably sparked concerns. Business reorganisation and restructuring are an inevitable part of a healthy, competitive economy. Even so, being retrenched can be a shock and cause disruption to the lives of affected workers. I empathise with these anxieties.

How can we help affected workers? Firstly, the onus is on employers to be fair and responsible when conducting retrenchments. In my earlier replies to Parliamentary Questions filed in February this year, I had set out our tripartite approach to ensuring that retrenchment is carried out responsibly. We educate employers on being responsible via the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment (TAMEM), with non-compliant employers referred to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP). I will not repeat the same points here.

Secondly, we must also ensure that those who are retrenched are able to get back on their feet relatively quickly. We do so by equipping workers with industry-relevant skills through the education system and through SkillsFuture and by keeping the labour market tight through complementary foreign workforce policies.

By and large, most retrenched workers are able to bounce back quickly. Our data shows that about two-thirds of retrenched workers re-enter into employment within six months, and the resident long-term unemployment rate remains low at about 0.7%.

However, some retrenched workers do face greater difficulties in finding a new job. We lean forward to assist them. When a company reports a retrenchment exercise, the Taskforce for Responsible Retrenchment and Employment Facilitation goes in and offers support to affected workers. This task force is led by Workforce Singapore and it includes representatives from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG).

The task force will work with the company to offer employment facilitation services and information kits on career resources. Retrenched workers can make use of WSG's programmes, such as the Career Conversion Programme (CCP) and the Mid-Career Pathways Programme to explore job switches and reskill for new opportunities. At MOM's Committee of Supply on Monday, I will share how we are enhancing our programmes to support jobseekers.

Finally, I recognise that retrenchment can cause a shock to the household finances, and this will make it difficult for the jobseeker to focus on finding a new and suitable job. We will be introducing a support scheme to empower involuntarily unemployed jobseekers to bounce back into employment. We are close to finalising the scheme parameters, and more information will be announced later this year.

Mr Yip Hon Weng also asked about how we are supporting senior workers to get re-employed. My earlier points on equipping workers with industry-relevant skills, keeping the labour market tight, and providing employment facilitation support apply equally to senior workers.

Many of SkillsFuture Singapore and Workforce Singapore's programmes provide a higher level of support for mature workers aged 40 and above. In addition, the Government supports the hiring of seniors through the Senior Employment Credit. The upcoming Workplace Fairness Legislation will provide additional protections against age discrimination at the workplace.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yip.

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for his reply. I have two supplementary questions. One, which are the specific industries experiencing high retrenchments, and what are the targeted Government support for these sectors? Two, can the Minister share about the Government's approach to encouraging businesses to prioritise retraining and redeployment of existing employees before resorting to retrenchments?

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the Member for his supplementary questions. The sectors that are facing significant global headwinds, are usually the outward-oriented sectors. So, electronics, manufacturing, wholesale trade and some parts of information and communications technology (ICT). Because retrenchment numbers have come off from a low of, I think, 2022 to last year, we started off on a low base.

The retrenchment numbers have not hit the same high as what we experienced during the pandemic itself. It has just gone back to pre-pandemic levels. What we are doing, in terms of prioritising, we encourage businesses to prioritise retraining and redeployment.

The fact is that, in terms of reskilling the workers, we have rolled out a significant number of initiatives, working with our Tripartite Partners to do so to encourage businesses to take on these initiatives and also to invest in reskilling the workers.

But we recognise that these initiatives can be costly for businesses. So, because of that, we provide support to co-share costs with employers to reskill existing workers for new or enhanced job roles. For instance, I will be talking more about the enhancements to the CCP on Monday at MOM's Committee of Supply.

But as of the outset, CCPs organised, with Workforce Singapore supports up to 90% of the costs of the training and also the opportunity costs for these workers itself. This is something that we are very forward-leaning on.

On top of that, we also fund NTUC through the set-up of the company training committees, and they also work with companies to develop and work with their human resources departments to develop these company training committees to help reskill, upskill and also retrain the workers of these companies as well.

Mr Speaker: Mr Saktiandi.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have one supplementary question. In relation to some of my residents who have also come forward to me to seek help for job placement and had difficulty getting jobs after six months, I think the Minister mentioned earlier in his replies to Mr Yip that some Singaporeans may have difficulty getting a job beyond six months. Can the Minister share whether MOM has specific data to track what are the main reasons why they had difficulty getting a job beyond six months and what are the challenges, which specific demographics and how we can address them?

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank Mr Saktiandi for his supplementary question. As I have shared earlier on, the long-term unemployment rate – currently, it is about 0.7%, so, it is quite low. And if you look at the fact that about two-thirds of those that we help, typically get into a new job within six months of leaving an earlier job, whether it is because of retrenchment or voluntarily becoming unemployed in terms of looking for pivots.

So, to the Member's question about what are some of the reasons, the common survey findings that we get from people who find difficulty in terms of getting a new job beyond the six-month period, comes from a host of factors, in terms of their own expectations of what they want to do and, particularly, if they need to pivot to a different industry, the type of skillsets that is required.

As a result of getting some of this feedback, we have also rolled out at the beginning of last year, I think at MOM's Committee of Supply in 2023, a new initiative called Career Health, where we typically encourage, when the worker himself is still in active employment, to take an active interest in continually keeping his skills updated and always staying on top of the entire sector in which he is working in.

On top of that, we have also added on the CareersFinder within the MyCareersFuture portal, for this particular worker or for any worker, to seek out skills adjacencies that he could continue to upgrade and, at the same time, find opportunities to prolong career longevity and also to move on to a different career trajectory if he so wishes.

So, those are parallel efforts that we are doing, because we believe in that rather than wait till the worker gets unemployed or retrenched and then you start to do that. Of course, we already have those slew of initiatives, but prevention is always better and taking an active interest, taking an active constant investment in upgrading his own skillsets and keeping him on top of the game, that is still key to preserving the longevity of the career path. I hope that addresses the Member's point.

Mr Speaker: Mr Pritam Singh.

Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): I thank the Minister for answering the original question. Just a quick follow-up on the Minister's point about the upcoming support for workers who are involuntarily unemployed.

Can I confirm whether the benefits or the programme that the Government is considering is over and above its current policy on retrenchment benefits, as in even though those are not legislated, are they going to supersede the Government's position on retrenchment benefits or are they still two separate matters?

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for seeding that question. I hope to address more of this in about three days' time. But the intent, first and foremost, is that this is not an unemployment insurance. So, retrenchment benefits will still continue.

What we are intending to do is to provide this support so that the involuntarily unemployed workers can take a little bit more time in finding a right fit for the jobs that would come their way, rather than rushing into any job that they can find.

Like I said earlier on, we are close to finalising the parameters. I do not want to front-run the entire scheme itself. We will be announcing the details later on this year. But the Member can take heed that, to his point, the retrenchment benefits today will still move, as it has always been moving along.