Gaining from supporting staff learning, development

SMALL and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore suffered a year of uncertainty in 2016, with the number of SMEs that tapped government grants for productivity initiatives falling by over 18 per cent to 16,300.

Yet, despite the drop, SMEs are still expected to create 21,400 new jobs for professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs) and contribute S$7.8 billion in value-add to the economy.

At the same time, the latest macroeconomic review from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) shows that a combination of slow economic growth and skill mismatches - with an increasing number of redundancies - sees PMETs struggling to find jobs in a grim market.

Although more jobs will be created by SMEs, PMETs in Singapore may not have the requi…