More than 20,500 traineeship, attachment opportunities available: Josephine Teo

MORE than 20,500 traineeship and company attachment opportunities have been made available, with more than 2,800 local jobseekers placed under the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package.

The top five sectors, which together account for more than half of the openings, are financial services, infocomm technology and media, professional services, wholesale trade, and electronics, said Manpower Minister Josephine Teo in Parliament on Wednesday.

She noted that how quickly an employer's application is approved depends in part on the comprehensiveness of its submission. Factoring in time for the programme manager, Singapore Business Federation (SBF), to seek clarifications and enhancement, most applications are approved within four weeks.

Mrs Teo said this is not where the bottleneck is, as there are already existing openings available to jobseekers.

"After suitable matches are found and necessary supporting documents are submitted to SBF, the traineeship or company attachment can commence," she said.

The SGUnited Traineeships Programme and SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme were launched on June 1 and Aug 1 respectively and were introduced to provide company-hosted traineeship and attachment opportunities for recent graduates and mid-career jobseekers.

Mrs Teo also noted that while the focus must now be to secure more successful placement, SBF continues to accept new applications to host company attachments for mid-career individuals that commence before March 31, 2021.

The SGUnited Jobs and Skills Centres have been launched in phases since early July and by end-August, one has been set up across all 24 HDB towns. While these satellite career centres were only in operation from end-August, career ambassadors have advised around 4,200 jobseekers by now.

But Mrs Teo said it is more useful to consider the collective impact, given that jobseekers are reached through multiple channels and assisted through a variety of means.

"Between January and August this year, we have provided career-matching services to about 44,200 jobseekers through the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Centres as well as WSG and NTUC's e2i's five permanent career centres. Since the launch of the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package in April 2020, we have placed 33,100 jobseekers into job, traineeship, attachment, and training opportunities. This is in spite of a two-month lockdown and the deep economic recession," she said.

"We will continue to curate more opportunities while seeking to increase placements of jobseekers."