Singapore WDA sets aside S$28 million to help PMETs pick up new skills

The Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) will strengthen efforts to help Singaporeans find jobs, including setting aside S$28 million over the next two years to help PMETs pick up new skills, it was announced on Tuesday (Jun 14). These measures come in the light of the gloomy economic climate and increasing retrenchments. (ChannelNewsAsia)

“The unemployment rate for older Singaporeans have actually gone up… for the last few quarters. At the same time, retrenched workers are taking a much longer time to find jobs,” said Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say. “So what this really means is that what we are fearful about for a long time is actually happening now – which is the growing mismatch between the job seekers and job demand.” Mr Lim added that the most critical challenge will be to ensure that the mismatch does not widen. “One of the critical factors is whether we are able to help as many of our PMETs as possible to adapt and grow in the new environment, ” said Mr Lim.

As such, the initiatives announced today aims to help them. The S$28 million will be used to expand the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs), to help PMETs – including mid-career switches – pick up new skills and take on new jobs with good prospects. This will bring the total number of PMETs helped by the PCPs to over 10,000 by 2018.

These programmes are typically offered in a place-and-train mode, where citizens and permanent residents are hired by a participating employer before starting training to acquire the knowledge and competency to take on the job. Over the next two years, such programmes will be expanded from 10 to 20 sectors. The new sectors include retail, food services, public transport and logistics. There will also be more opportunities for Singaporeans to find jobs, with at least one career event every day for them to tap on to re-skill, switch careers or take on new jobs. To this end, WDA is working closely with community partners and trade associations to increase the number of community job fairs, career preparatory workshops, industry-focused career fairs and career learning journeys to hiring companies. From Jun 8 to 28, 30 such events have been lined up over the three weeks, where job seekers can explore 3,000 job vacancies, of which 1,200 are targeted at PMETs.