New roles for laid-off Singapore workers may not be perfect fit

Singapore

A HOST of opportunities are being created to help the swelling ranks of the retrenched.

But there is no guarantee these new roles can cushion displaced Singapore workers - especially white-collar job seekers - analysts warned.

The coronavirus pandemic-fuelled recession that has arrived on Singapore shores is expected to claim tens of thousands of workers in 2020, with net job creation at least a year away.

In response, the government has unveiled an SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package that aims to support some 100,000 job seekers with a mix of new jobs and training positions, in both the public and private sectors.

Said Walter Theseira, associate professor of economics at the Singapore University of Social Sciences: "There is no shortage of demand for workers in essential domestic services, and many types of manufacturing are holding up reasonably well."

Roles have already been found for more than 12,000 workers since March under SGUnited Jobs initiative, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo told the press in early July. Some seven in 10 were in the public sector - largely for Covid-19 positions, such as swabbing and safe-distancing operations.

Mrs Teo also pointed to 7,000 immediate vacancies. Two-thirds of these are PMET opportunities, such as education and career guidance counsellors at the Education Ministry, and software developers at the Defence Science and Technology Agency.

On a solely numerical basis, DBS senior economist Irvin Seah, who closely watches professional, manager, executive and technician (PMET) employment, told The Business Times that these openings ought to absorb the number of PMETs who were put out of work in the last four quarters.

He also expects other PMET roles to come onto the market in specialised areas such as financial services. This was affirmed by Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon who recently said that the financial services sector is still tipped to be a net creator of jobs this year.

"But the caveat is that PMET jobs tend to be quite specialised jobs," Mr Seah warned. "We have to ensure that there is a good job match and, if required, there needs to be training."

Meanwhile, the SGUnited package also includes 4,000 traineeships for unemployed locals, and monthly training allowances for 30,000 job seekers who attend courses.

Yet offerings "may not be appealing to those who have lost jobs", noted Mohamed Faiz Nagutha, Asean economist at Bank of America Securities.

"We shouldn't count on it to significantly cushion the downturn in the labour market," he said of the overall SGUnited Jobs and Skills initiative, adding that it is not expected to move the needle on net employment.

That's even as Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who chairs the National Jobs Council, told a conference last week that attachments and traineeships are needed, with permanent jobs in short supply.

Given the dire business climate, parts of the private sector are also pulling back on jobs: 11 per cent of employers polled recently by recruitment firm Kerry Consulting said that they are downsizing, while 15 per cent have imposed a hiring freeze.

Just 21 per cent of the 650 human resource professionals who were surveyed said Covid-19 has had no impact on workforce planning activities.

To be sure, there is another cushion for locals: "Foreign employment has served as a buffer" during recessions, as Mrs Teo told media in July.

Terence Ho, MOM divisional director of manpower planning and policy division, also disclosed that foreigners were behind much of the first-quarter employment contraction. Foreign worker headcount - excluding maids - shrank by about 60,000 in the January-to-May period.

Similarly, labour chief Ng Chee Meng last week urged employers to commit to "helping Singaporeans keep their jobs while due considerations are given to foreign workers".

Watchers agreed that targeted aid, such as Jobs Support Scheme wage subsidies, have made letting go of residents a last resort.

For instance, Resorts World Sentosa's retrenchments in mid-July affected mainly foreign workers, with the aim of preserving "a stronger Singaporean core" after the exercise.

Christopher Gee, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, told BT: "It is likely that on a net basis, job losses among the foreign workforce will be higher than local."

Mr Gee, who covers labour policy, cited limiting government aid to local workers, as well as possible "challenges in hiring new foreign workers".

But not having to deal with direct social costs from resident unemployment does not preclude "other consequences of severe job loss" in the economy, according to Prof Theseira.

"Companies still lose valuable productive capacity and institutional knowledge when they let foreign workers go," he said, while businesses that serve foreign workers could see sharp falls in demand.

Job market watchers also noted that not all of the positions vacated by foreigners will be filled by locals.

In the executive search area where Kerry Consulting operates, chief executive Declan O'Sullivan said that employers across all industries are trying to up their local recruitment. But "the idea that this tiny population could feed all these regional centres... is absolutely impossible", he added.

While the MOM would not give a breakdown of the 60,000 foreign jobs by industry or work pass type, BofA's Mr Nagutha believes most losses took place in the construction and retail sectors - which are known to be reliant on lower-wage foreign labour.

Mr Seah also spoke of Chinese and Malaysian workers who may have been unable to re-enter Singapore amid virus-related travel curbs.

"If we simply look at the numbers, we may think that we can get locals to fill the gaps from the job losses," he said. "But the reality may not be the case. Many of these jobs are jobs that Singaporeans shun, to begin with. It is not a perfect one-for-one fit, nor a one-for-one replacement."

As for when Singapore will turn the corner, Mr Seah said net job creation would come around mid-2021 if the market bottoms out by year-end.

"Broadly speaking, the only group of employers that would help to support these job creation numbers are the government-linked companies and the government," he told BT, adding that multinational firms "are not here to do national service".

More gloomily, Prof Theseira added: "If the recovery is slow, we may not return to end-2019 (employment) levels even throughout 2021."

On the bright side, he noted that many of the jobs now being shed in tourism-related sectors are not high-value positions: "It would not be a terrible thing if population and net employment were to stabilise but we replace some of the lost jobs with higher-value-added jobs."

Along those lines, Mr Gee suggested that even sectors such as retail and F&B could eventually see job creation as employers "adapt to industry transformation and digitalisation" and post-Covid-19 business models.

"Many jobs will be redesigned, and the hope is that Singaporeans who take advantage of the reskilling and training opportunities will be able to fill new roles that emerge," he added.

As for higher-wage earners, Mr O'Sullivan told BT that "we're seeing a bit more activity" after four months of a de facto hiring freeze: "That's coming off a bit, but only a bit."

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