Jobs bank: Working or not?

January 19, 2016

More employers plan to increase hiring

I refer to the article “More employers in Singapore planning to increase headcount this year: Hudson” (Straits Times, Jan 19).

It states that “The half-yearly survey of employers found that 41 per cent plan to increase headcount in the new year and only 6 per cent to decrease it, giving a net effect of 35 per cent. The majority (53 per cent) of Singapore employers are planning to maintain current headcount.”

More PMETs unemployed?

Against the above, the labour statistics seem to be continuing to deteriorate for PMETs in unemployment, long-term unemployment and under-employment.

National jobs bank working well?

So, the $64,000 question may be – is the national jobs bank under the fair consideration framework working to give priority to Singaporean job seekers?

Unfortunately, there are no statistics available as to what percentage of the jobs actually went to Singaporeans.

One possible clue may be to look at the job placement statistics in the Department of Statistics’ Monthly Digest of Statistics December 2015.

Job placements declined 7.8%?

The ratio of job placements to new (job) registrants (seeking help to get jobs) declined from 47.1 per cent (16,934 placements divided by 35,940 registrants) in 2013 to 41.5 per cent (15,645 divided by 37,740) in 2014, and further to 39.3 per cent (6,999 divided by 17,827)  (April to September 2015).

Since the national jobs bank went live in May 2014, and officially from 1 August 2014 – do the above statistics indicate that it may not really be working well for Singaporean PMET job seekers?

What do you think?

Leong Sze Hian

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About the Author

Leong
Leong Sze Hian has served as the president of 4 professional bodies, honorary consul of 2 countries, an alumnus of Harvard University, authored 4 books, quoted over 1500 times in the media , has been a radio talkshow host, a newspaper daily columnist, Wharton Fellow, SEACeM Fellow, columnist for theonlinecitizen and Malaysiakini, executive producer of Ilo Ilo (40 international awards), Hotel Mumbai (associate producer), invited to speak more than 200 times in about 40 countries, CIFA advisory board member, founding advisor to the Financial Planning Associations of 2 countries. He has 3 Masters, 2 Bachelors degrees and 13 professional  qualifications.