Success Rates of Government Career Assistance Schemes

3 Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what have been the success rates of (i) the Career Support Programme (ii) the Professional Conversion programme and (iii) the P-Max Programme so far; and (b) whether the Ministry will increase the number of intakes for each programme or improve the system including the extension of grants from one year to three years.

The Minister for Manpower (Mr Lim Swee Say): Mdm Speaker, the Adapt and Grow initiative was launched earlier this year to support workers, especially mid-career professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), in finding jobs. In the first three quarters of this year, 6,400 PMETs found jobs through the assistance of Workforce Singapore (WSG) and the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i).

To help more PMETs to take up available jobs in a different profession, we are increasing the number of Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) from 22 covering 12 sectors at the beginning of this year to more than 50 covering almost all sectors by the end of the year. This will benefit more than 1,000 PMETs a year.

For mature PMETs who are made redundant, we are helping them to find new employment by providing wage support for the first year of employment. This is done through the Career Support Programme (CSP). Out of 1,500 eligible PMETs who have registered with WSG and e2i, more than 200 have received such wage support through their new employers since the inception of CSP in October 2015.

We have also helped about 900 PMETs to secure jobs in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under P-Max so far this year. We expect this number to exceed 1,000 by the end of the year.

Together with the tripartite partners, WSG will continue to raise the awareness of these Adapt and Grow programmes among workers and businesses. We will continue to expand our capacity to support more workers and employers as we go through this economic transition. We will also continue to refine these programmes to ensure that they are effective in helping workers and businesses to adapt and grow.

Mdm Speaker: Mr Gan Thiam Poh.

Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Ang Mo Kio): I thank the Minister for the comprehensive reply. May I know, how many employers have participated so far in those schemes that the Minister had mentioned? And how effective have they been? And will the Ministry reach out to more businesses or companies to start these programmes, in order to reach out to more affected workers?

Mr Lim Swee Say: Mdm Speaker, Mr Gan asked how many employers have participated in these programmes. As I mentioned, this year alone, we have helped about 6,400 employees. I do not have a breakdown in terms of the number of employers, but if we look at that number, we can easily estimate that the number of employers would be in the thousands as well.

Mdm Speaker: Mr Patrick Tay.

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan (West Coast): I would like to make a suggestion to the Minister. Looking at the structural challenges that we are facing in terms of unemployment, there are three types of mismatches, as the Minister would be aware. The jobs mismatch, skills mismatch and expectations mismatch: both on the part of the employee as well as the employer. Many of our Adapt and Grow programmes, rightly, address the skills mismatch.

So, I hope the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) can work closely with the tripartite partners to address also the expectations as well as the jobs mismatch factors. I have noticed quite a number of such cases in the course of our dealings with many of the retrenched workers, but clearly amongst the professionals, managers and executives (PMEs), where they have a bit of a challenge.

Mr Lim Swee Say: Mdm Speaker, I agree with Mr Patrick Tay in terms of job matching for the PMETs. We have identified basically two key challenges.

One is that of a mismatch, meaning that the PMETs looking for jobs and the jobs looking for PMETs, due to an information gap, are both not able to find each other. So, there is a mismatch.

The second type of challenge is the mismatch, meaning that they have found each other, but either the jobs do not find the jobseekers suitable, or vice versa. Under our Adapt and Grow programmes, we are trying to address both. For example, if you talk about the case of the expectation gap, in fact, this is exactly what the CSP is about. CSP is to bridge the expectation gap in terms of wages between employer and employee, and this is the reason why we provide this wage support for the first year of their employment so that, hopefully, after one year, both sides' expectation gap can be narrowed and they continue from there.

Having said so, certainly, there is a lot more that we need to do and can do. I really appreciate that the Labour Movement is playing a very active part in this whole exercise. Take, for example, the e2i. The e2i is a very important part of our employment and Career Support Programme, and I hope that the National Trades Union Congress and the Labour Movement will continue to partner MOM, together with the tripartite partners, and do more for our PMETs.

Mdm Speaker: Assoc Prof Randolph Tan.

Assoc Prof Randolph Tan (Nominated Member): Madam, the Minister gave some useful data on the number of placements under the CSP as well as the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP). But does the Ministry track other measures of performance, for instance, that could include the number of sectors which are being covered through these placements as well as the number of PMETs who drop out after being placed?

Mr Lim Swee Say: I thank the Member for the question. Yes, if we look at the numbers presented, these are the overall numbers. But in terms of actual tracking, we track by sector. We track by ages as well. For example, of the PMETs that we supported so far, we keep track of what percentage of them are below 40 years old, between 40 and 50, and above 50. As pointed out by the Member, we also track in terms of which are the most so-called popular sectors and which are the sectors where there are most openings.

In other words, our programmes are not at the national level. In fact, all our Adapt and Grow programmes are sector by sector. PCP is sector by sector; P-Max is targeted at the SME sector; and CSP is targeted more at those with this expectation gap. So, on the whole, we try to be as comprehensive as possible in our outreach.

As to the question about retention, for some of our schemes, we do attach a condition. For example, in the case of CSP, the employment period must be a minimum of one year. In the case of PCP, we do track after that. But at the end of the day, the key number that we track is the unemployment number. Some of them, after their professional conversion, they go and work for a company. But even if they have left the company, as long as they continue to be in employment, to us, the outcome is still a positive one.