Appointment of Foreign Job Placement Agencies by Workforce Singapore
Ministry of ManpowerSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the rationale, projected placements, and costs of Workforce Singapore (WSG) appointing foreign job placement agencies to assist local PMETs. MP Pritam Singh inquired why foreign firms were selected over local ones and requested data on projected placement numbers and costs for the pilot. Minister for Manpower Lim Swee Say replied that local agencies often focus on passive jobseekers, whereas the chosen partners have specialized expertise in helping active, unemployed jobseekers. He noted that the pilot adapts international best practices from the United Kingdom and Australia to better support locals facing employment barriers. The Minister clarified that payment to these agencies is performance-linked, based on the number and profile of successful job placements.
Transcript
16 Mr Pritam Singh asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what is the rationale for Workforce Singapore to appoint foreign job placement agencies instead of local agencies with an established presence in Singapore to help local PMETs find jobs; (b) what is the projected number of job placements to be found through the two agencies at the end of the two-year pilot scheme; and (c) what is the projected cost of outsourcing job placements to the two foreign agencies over the pilot phase.
Mr Lim Swee Say: To keep strengthening employment support for our local jobseekers, Workforce Singapore (WSG) adopts a multi-provider approach to help them. It runs three career centres, complemented by two more centres operated by the National Trades Union Congress-Employment and Employability Institute. In addition, WSG and its predecessor, Workforce Development Agency (WDA), had tapped on private sector employment agencies to provide wider employment outreach for our jobseekers.
As unemployment has generally been low, placements done by most employment agencies here have involved mainly passive jobseekers, that is, persons already in employment who may not be actively searching for jobs. To step up our support for active jobseekers who are unemployed and actively looking for jobs, we did a global search of employment agencies with the business model, experience and expertise suited to help such active jobseekers. We found that partnerships between the government and the private sector have been successful in countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, where private placement providers are contracted to place active jobseekers, including those who may face greater employment barriers. Hence, WSG appointed two of them as our partners so that we can adapt some of their best practices in Singapore for the benefit of our active jobseekers.
The two placement providers in the current pilot commenced operations six and eight months ago. Currently, they are still ramping up their operations and have yet to reach steady state. The payment they will receive from WSG will mainly depend on how many jobseekers they are able to place, taking into account the profile of the jobseekers, including age and length of unemployment.