Tag: Ministry of Manpower

Discouraged, More Under 30 Stop Looking For Jobs

After he graduated with a degree in economics and finance in 2014, Mr Haziq Baharudin spent a year sending out hundreds of resumes as he looked for a permanent job.

Late last year, the 25-year-old decided it was time to give up on his job search after he failed to receive any responses.

He decided he would resume his search for a full-time position when the economy improves and joined his friends and started an F&B business.

Mr Haziq is part of a growing number of discouraged workers here aged under 30.

This year, there were 1,200 young discouraged workers, up from 700 last year. A discouraged worker is someone who is not actively looking for a job because he or she does not think that a search will yield results.

When the prevailing outlook in the economy is gloomy and there is a shortage of jobs, the incidence of discouraged workers tends to increase.

This year, there were 9,900 discouraged workers, up from 8,700 last year but lower than the 11,100 in 2009.

According to the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) advance release on the labour force two weeks ago, 6,900 of discouraged workers – nearly 70 per cent – were aged above 50.

The under 30s were the second largest group at 12 per cent.

The MOM report cited some reasons for workers being discouraged – the belief that there is no suitable work available, employers’ discrimination or the lack of necessary qualifications, training or experience.

National University of Singapore (NUS) labour economist Liu Hao Ming says it is hard to guess if young discouraged workers here are highly educated.

He said: “By definition, these individuals believe that they cannot find a job at the wage rate that is at or above their reservation wages (lowest wage rate at which a worker is willing to accept a particular type of job).

“It… is a mix of expectation of acceptable wages and probability of finding such jobs.”

Mr Haziq admits that his chances of employment could have been limited because he insisted on getting a job in the creative industry.

Eventually, worry over his finances led him to set up SteamHaus with his friends.

SteamHaus sells steamed buns at events and has been quite successful so far.

He said: “I think I would be a lot more stressed if the business was going badly. I saved quite a bit during National Service and from my freelance jobs, but I was worried this would dry up.”

NUS sociologist Tan Ern Ser thinks that the number of young discouraged workers could rise if there continues to be a mismatch of skills and expectations between job seekers and employers.

He said: “Our young people have been brought up to believe in the Singapore Dream – they want to be able to purchase a flat, settle down and enjoy a decent standard of living. If their job prospects do not support that kind of aspirations, they would be rather discouraged.”

Source: The New Paper

December 12, 2016
Technicians, Engineers, Among Hard-To-Fill Job Positions

More employers are having problems filling job vacancies, a worldwide survey has found, reflecting the mismatch in jobs and skills that government leaders recently highlighted while addressing the rising number of layoffs.

The Talent Shortage Survey, released on Tuesday (Oct 18) by workforce solutions provider ManpowerGroup, showed that sales representatives, engineers, technicians, accounting and finance professionals, as well as drivers are the top five jobs in Singapore that are not being taken up.

More than 42,000 employers in 42 countries were surveyed and 40 per cent of them have trouble filling jobs — the highest level in nine years.

Slightly more than half of the employers here (51 per cent) reported facing difficulty in filling jobs, a jump of 11 per cent from last year, the survey showed.

(Click to enlarge)

These employers said that the top reason for that is the job-seeker’s lack of experience (22 per cent), or the candidate was looking for more pay than offered (21 per cent), or there was a lack of or no applicants (17 per cent).

To address this shortage, 52 per cent of the employers here are offering training and development to existing workers, ManpowerGroup said in a press release, while 47 per cent are paying higher salary packages to recruits.

The Government’s latest labour market report showed that there were more job-seekers than the number of job vacancies available, and in the first half of the year, professionals, managers, executives and technicians made up about 56 per cent of layoffs.

In Parliament last week, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say addressed this problem in the job market, saying there is a need to minimise the mismatch in jobs and skills, given that many job-seekers have higher expectations and aspirations, and do not want jobs that have been newly vacated by others. Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam also said last month that Singapore faces “a big task” in matching people to jobs and in reducing the mismatches in workers’ skills and what jobs require.

Ms Linda Teo, country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore, said: “Upskilling our Singapore workforce is critical to ensure organisations have the skills they need to accelerate performance and everyone has access to the opportunities on offer.

“The best organisations know this, which is why we’ve seen a marked rise in the number of businesses focusing on training and development to fill talent gaps. We expect to see this number grow.”

In the Asia-Pacific region, almost half of the employers (46 per cent) report hiring difficulties, with Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong reporting the most challenges.

The survey found that, overall, employers worldwide are looking inside their organisations for solutions to tackle this rapid change in skills requirements, with more than half choosing to develop and train their own people. This is a big increase from last year’s survey, when just 20 per cent of employers prioritised training and development to fill roles or find new skills.

For the first time globally, the IT sector found itself among the top five spots for industries with hard-to-fill roles, and IT businesses are reporting the most marked talent shortage in a number of years.

Source: www.todayonline.com

October 18, 2016
PRC Buat Kerja Bodoh, Kowtow Kat Bendemeer Road

Bro,

Share ni gambar…PRC buat hal buat road macam bapak dia punya siak.

Ni dekat ngan Bendemeer Road, baru keluar PIE ada MOM office kat situ.

Apa idea diorang dapat tak tau siak…dangerous kalau kena langgar pun padan muka.

Diorang import diorang punya cara kat sini. Ada chance orang kita terikut-ikut tak? Takde lar eh SIngaporean takde otak mati sampai gini.

Fuad

[Reader Contribution]

August 24, 2015
Lim Swee Say Outlines Four Manpower Priorities For Singapore

After spending his first month on the job meeting employer groups, business chambers and trade associations, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say said on Tuesday that he has been able to get their agreement to work towards four priority outcomes.

These are: becoming more manpower lean, building a strong Singaporean core, ensuring the foreign workforce is of good quality and maintaining Singapore’s competitiveness.

Speaking to the media for the first time since he moved from the labour unions to be Manpower Minister, Mr Lim said that this will help to ensure that manpower constraints do not become the limiting factor for Singapore’s economic growth.

“I think at the back of the mind is that given the constraints (businesses) face with manpower, how are they going to be able to respond to external competition…I requested they work together to think and look beyond the considerations of today,” he said at the Manpower Ministry headquarters. He took up his current post on May 4.

Action must take place at the industry and sub-industry levels, he added. “We don’t have to wait until everybody agrees to start. All it takes is three companies, five companies, seven companies that are prepared to take the lead.”

Mr Lim also said that he has been explaining to business leaders who have asked whether they will be able to employ more foreign workers that the ministry cannot afford to adopt a more liberal policy.

“If we continue to do so, the ratio of local workers versus foreign manpower will continue to decline…One day Singaporeans will wake up to find ourselves as a minority in our Singapore workforce, and obviously that’s not sustainable, that’s not desirable,” he said.

Other areas such as the national jobs bank will be reviewed, and more details are expected in around a month’s time, he said.

Continuing his push for a three-way partnership between unions, employers and the government, Mr Lim, who was labour chief for eight years, said that his actions would show his commitment to finding solutions that benefit all three – encouraging good business, good careers and good economic growth.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

June 3, 2015
Lim Swee Say: Degree Mills Are Fine So Long As Individuals Meet Salary And Experience Criteria

New Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say on Monday wrote an entry in his blog to explain how the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) treats forged degrees and those from degree mills in Employment Pass and S Pass applications.

His explanation included an infographic (see below) and the potential penalty for providing forged degrees.

Those who provide fraudulent educational documents will be barred for life from working in Singapore.

Those with degrees from an unaccredited institution, will be assessed based on their experience and salary criteria.

His blog post came after Non-Constituency MP Gerald Giam had submitted a Parliamentary Question on Monday about the checks that are done when processing S Pass and Employment Pass applications.

Mr Lim provided a similar answer, and said that to detect forged qualifications, his ministry conducts internal database checks, as well as external checks through third-party screening agencies, direct verifications with the issuing institutions, and by requiring the employer to show proof that they have verified that the submitted qualifications are genuine.

He added that employers have a primary responsibility to ensure the authenticity and quality of the academic qualifications of the foreigners they wish to hire.

Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

May 12, 2015