Adults with Special Needs who are Financially-dependent on Retired Parents

25 Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) whether the Ministry keeps track of how many adult persons with special needs or persons with disability are financially dependent on their parents who have retired; (b) what are the current programmes and schemes available to help adult persons with special needs or disabilities to secure their own livelihood for their financial self-sufficiency, in particular those who are high functioning; and (c) what is the success rate of these programmes and schemes.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Eric Chua) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Mr Speaker, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) does not track whether adult persons with disabilities (PWDs) are financially dependent on parents who have retired. Based on the Comprehensive Labour Force Survey (CLFS), the average resident employment rate for PWDs aged 15 to 64 has increased steadily from 28.2% in the period of 2018 to 2019 when data on PWDs was first collected, to 31.4% in 2021 to 2022.

SG Enable offers a wide variety of support for PWDs seeking employment. Under the Open Door Programme (ODP), PWDs receive up to one year of job matching, and customised employment support from trained job coaches. Grants under the ODP provide subsidies for PWDs to attend training courses by the Enabling Academy – SG Enable's disability learning hub – as well as for workshops that prepare employers and their employees without disabilities to interact with, hire, integrate and retain employees with disabilities in their organisation. Between 2020 and 2022, SG Enable and its partners placed an average of 500 PWDs into jobs each year.

PWDs can also take up job and training opportunities created under the customised Place-and-Train and Attach-and-Train programmes. More than 380 job and training opportunities have been filled under these two programmes since they were introduced in 2021.

The Government also provides employers with wage support through the Enabling Employment Credit (EEC). The EEC provides up to 20% wage support for employees with disabilities earning below $4,000 per month, capped at $400. More support is provided to encourage the hiring of PWDs who are long-term unemployed and are more likely to be financially reliant on their families. Employers who hire PWDs who have not been working for at least six months will receive an additional 20% of wage offsets, capped at $400 per month per employee, for the first nine months. In 2022, close to 6,600 organisations received the EEC and collectively employed more than 10,000 employees with disabilities, including close to 2,000 who had not been in work for at least six months. The Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) also provides additional support to lower-income workers, including PWDs, by supplementing their income and Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings.

Building an inclusive workplace requires a whole-of-society effort. As part of the Enabling Masterplan 2030, we encourage more employers to provide suitable employment opportunities for PWDs. Later this year, the first Enabling Business Hub (EBH) will be launched to bring jobs and employment support closer to where PWDs live. The EBH will provide more customised skills training and job coaching to help PWDs remain in their jobs and also open up opportunities in new sectors such as logistics. We encourage partners across the private, people and public sectors to join our efforts to achieve the aspirational target to raise the employment rate of PWDs to 40% by 2030.

Mr Speaker: Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Speaker, I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the answer. It is quite heartening to hear that we have been making progress. I understand that since December last year, we have 35,500 students with special needs who are in our education system right now, which means that they will be growing up to become adults in the next 10 to 15 years.

Given that we are making some progress, are there going to be further investments in ensuring that this whole-of-society approach can be accelerated to further enable more numbers of persons with special needs to be employed in their adulthood, to greater success, meaning, more retention and to measure their level of self-sufficiency, because this is likely to be a cost to the country? And whether, in the long term, do we look at the support and integration of persons with special needs based on a certain ratio of welfare versus self-sufficiency target? There are some who may not be able to work. But among those who can, with the relevant training and the relevant sensitisation of the employers and the general public, can we move that needle further and faster?

Mr Eric Chua: Sir, I thank the Member for her questions. The short answer to what she is asking about, essentially, is yes, more will be done. The EBH that I spoke about earlier is the first, the pilot. More business hubs will be set up across the island so that we can bring employment services and support services closer to where PWDs and their caregivers live.

In terms of how we want to achieve our aspirational target of getting 40% employment rates for PWDs by 2030, another strategy is to look at which other industries are more amenable to disability inclusive employment. Today, the industries that are more amenable include services, food and beverages. As I mentioned in my main reply, we are trying to move into other new growth areas, blue oceans for PWDs, such as logistics.

To achieve the aspirations that we want to achieve for PWDs, I think we need to go beyond the tangibles, we need to go beyond programmes. Essentially, we are also talking about a change of mindsets, a change of hearts as well. We do need a change of hearts on multiple fronts.

First of all, for PWDs themselves, many of them would also have thos question in their minds, especially if they have not been in the workplace for a long time, "Can I do it, can I be an employee of an organisation, a business, a corporate?" That is the question we need to address.

Secondly, caregivers. They will ask, "Can my loved ones do it? Can my loved ones work? Will he or she be bullied?" These are concerns we need to address as well.

Most of all, I would say, beyond the C-suite consent or support that we get from industries, we do need every employee, every supervisor – or as many of them as we can – to really embrace the fact that PWDs can live amongst us, can also be my fellow employee, can be my fellow workmate. I think we do need to initiate a conversation around these issues – not that we have not already, but we need to push the conversation even further so that we can drive this cause to a maximal effect.

Mr Speaker: Final supplementary question. Ms Denise Phua. Keep it short, please.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary, MSF and SG Enable for doing quite a lot of work in this space, especially in employment for adults with disabilities in the last decade. I do think that the hon Member Ms Carrie Tan's request to track data on the financial situation of adults with disabilities has some merit. Tracking data will ensure that there is better financial security for all adults with disabilities in our country, just like we would encourage typical folks to do the same as well.

I think that there is a need to gauge the size of the monster, the issue. There should be an intentional approach to first determine the archetypes of adults with disabilities – some can work full-time, some can work part-time, some will need more care and cannot really work in open employment. And then, there are also the family archetypes. There are different types of families – some can afford, very much they have their own resources.

Mr Speaker: Ms Phua, can you get to your supplementary question.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: And then, others who cannot. So, I think that there should be a better way of segmentation of these archetypes so that better methods in ensuring financial security can come about for this particular sector. For consideration, please.

Mr Eric Chua: Mr Speaker, I thank the Member Ms Denise Phua, for her question. I think I will summarise it into two parts. Firstly, spectrum, yes, we recognise the diversity of this community and we do want to be able to support them in a very targeted fashion. Secondly, in terms of tracking, we do take that feedback and we will see how best we can do it between SG Enable and MSF.