Job Openings for Fresh Graduates and Impact of Decline in Firms' Intention to Hire

7 Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how does the job openings for fresh graduates in the third quarter of 2023 (3Q2023) compare against the same period in 2022; (b) what is the proportion of recently employed fresh graduates who secured (i) contractual and (ii) full-time roles; and (c) considering that the 3Q2023 Labour Market Advance Release reported a decline in the proportion of firms with an intention to hire due to worsened business expectations, what is the Government's assessment of the impact on fresh graduates.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Tan See Leng): Mr Speaker, Sir, there is no data on job openings for fresh graduates, which I shall use as a collective term to also include graduates who just finished National Service. This is because employers do not usually specify the demographic requirements of job applicants in their job advertisements, as this is a breach of the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP).

Based on the annual Graduate Employment Survey (GES), employment outcomes for fresh graduates from our autonomous universities, polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) have remained strong. Amongst fresh graduates who were looking for jobs, about 90% of the 2022 cohort were employed within six months of graduation. Of those employed, 80% were in full-time permanent employment, which is comparable to pre-COVID levels. The remaining 20% in part-time temporary or freelance employment were mostly in such jobs by choice, with the majority doing so to pursue further studies.

Ms Nadia also asked about the proportion of fresh graduates in contractual roles. The GES does not collect this information.

Full-time permanent employment includes contracts lasting one year or more.

While hiring sentiments have dipped in the third quarter of 2023, the overall labour market remains tight. The number of job vacancies has trended downwards but remained high at 87,900 as at June 2023 and the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons stood at 1.94.

We have been highlighting the downward trend in terms of the job vacancies because of the tougher, uncertain economic outlook that is facing us, with the economic headwinds in the next few quarters. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and we will stand ready to assist our graduates. Fresh graduates can reach out to Education and Career Coaches in their respective Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) should they require support in their job search or tap on Workforce Singapore's (WSG) career matching services.

Mr Speaker: Ms Nadia.

Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin (Ang Mo Kio): Thank you. I would like to thank the Minister for his reply. I just have two follow-up supplementary questions. The first, whether there is any statistics on underemployment, in terms of whether the graduates going into these roles are facing that issue? The second, I know the Minister mentioned career counselling, WSG, and so on. Are there any other more specific resources for fresh graduates that they may tap for upskilling in the interim, while looking for a job, because SkillsFuture may not be so applicable to the younger graduates?

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the Member, Ms Nadia, for her supplementary questions. First, on underemployment, the measure that we have is time-related under-employment. Because of the tight labour market, time-related underemployment has been on a downward trend.

Today, of all employed residents in Singapore, time-related underemployment accounts for about 3% of the entire employed workforce for residents. For fresh graduates, it is way below that. It is 1.9% of fresh graduates today that have time-related under-employment.

In terms of the programmes, we have quite an extensive range of programmes to support our fresh graduates. At the IHLs, our students and graduates can tap on the Education and Career Counselling Services to find out more about jobs and what kind of opportunities and skill adjacencies they can have by upskilling.

Leading Government agencies are working with industry partners. We are also working with the Labour Movement and with the unions to facilitate the entry of polytechnic and ITE graduates into good jobs within key priority sectors with attractive starting wages and also meaningful career progression pathways.

In the information and communications technology sector, we work with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). There is a TechSkills Accelerator programme for ITE and polytechnics called the TechSkills Accelerator for ITE and Polytechnics Alliance; and this was set up in 2022. This is to drive the shift in hiring practices in the tech industry from one that is qualification-based to one that is skills-based.

Additionally, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is also scaling up Work-Study programmes where fresh polytechnic and ITE graduates are placed into jobs where they can deepen their skills through a structured training programme that includes on-the-job training while they are pursuing careers which are related to the discipline of study.

On top of that, we have Education and Career coaches and the career-matching services that WSG continues to provide, which offers a very good supplement to the current Education and Career Guidance programme provided by MOE as well as the IHLs.

There is an entire slew of programmes available today for them to tap on. Notwithstanding that, we anticipate this tightness to ease in terms of the labour situation because of the uncertainties that we are entering into over the next one to two quarters. We will not hesitate to step up, and step in, to help our graduates further, should the need arise.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai.

Mr Leong Mun Wai (Non-Constituency Member): Mr Speaker, can I ask the Minister whether there is any growth in the starting pay of the most recent batch of graduates, given that inflation is very high now?

Dr Tan See Leng: I do not have the statistics offhand. Perhaps Mr Leong can file a subsequent Parliamentary Question on this. I am happy to address it. We are going to release the Labour Market Report in December. There will be statistics to show that as well. That should come out within a month.