To combat the Covid-19 crisis, the Singaporean Government together with the national social partners, decided to tackle unemployment and create jobs.

The tripartite National Jobs Council comprises representatives of the government, including the Minister for Manpower, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Trade and Industry, representatives of the trade unions (National Trades Union Congress) and of the employers (Singapore National Employers Federation – SNEF, plus CEOs of large enterprises).

The Council met for the first time on 3 June 2020 with the official task to “identify and develop job opportunities and skills training for Singaporeans amidst the COVID-19 situation” with an aim to ultimately achieve the “SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package”, a support package for 100,000 job seekers over 12 months.

Among its means of action, the Council will work and “mobilise tripartite partners and training providers to establish a sizeable bank of SGUnited Jobs and Skills opportunities, catering to various sectors and every skill level;  enable Singaporeans to take full advantage of the scaled-up opportunities, through tight coordination across Government and tripartite partners and effective implementation of:

1. Job creation and matching;
2. Attachments and training for re-skilling; and
3. Job redesign in support of enterprise transformation.”

Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Chairman of the National Jobs Council, commented the initiative as follows: “We must work together as a national team to grow jobs and training opportunities in the coming months, on a scale well beyond any past experience. It is a challenging task, but achievable with tight coordination, and the tripartite partners going beyond established ways. We will use every way possible to create these opportunities, in both the public and private sectors, and pay special attention to our middle-aged and older workers.” He also said that “no amount of unemployment allowances can compensate for the demoralisation of being out of work for long.”

Robert Yap, SNEF President said that “SNEF is fully on board with the national effort to support our employees. Our members will look at how we can provide opportunities for existing and incoming employees to upskill themselves so that they can safeguard their livelihoods, not only in the near term but for the long-term.”

In concrete terms, the Government is working with the private sector to get Singaporeans hired through temporary assignments, attachments and traineeships to improve their skills while waiting for permanent jobs to open up. So far there have been 95,000 new opportunities either in jobs or trainings that include 65,000 job opportunities, close to 20,000 company-hosted traineeships, attachments or training places and more than 10,000 other opportunities under the SGUnited skills programme. 

Such initiative and discussion on the jobs of the future have been in the Singaporean political scene for a long time, but the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for changes. Thus, Singapore is investing heavily in reskilling and upskilling of the majority of Singaporeans who still have jobs and those who may have been on short time work schemes during the pandemic.  It has also expanded training opportunities through the “Next Bound of SkillsFuture”, a governmental programme facilitating skills-related credits for individuals and companies.

First of all, job opportunities are being created in the public sector such as healthcare, early childhood development, education and social services. Recruitment will be also step up in sectors that had faced shortage of personnel earlier.

SNEF on his side has created a Professional Conversion Programme (PCP) for professional Executives and the various sectors that are hiring and growing. In so doing the work done with employers since 2016 on digital workplace transformation is now translated into real jobs and career development.

For the sectors most severely hit by the pandemic like retail and aviation, SNEF is elaborating with the government and the unions a new scheme to help companies to employ workers “for possibly six to 12 months under a structured curriculum so that they gain industry-relevant skills”. Within this scheme “the Government would subsidise the salaries of the workers”.