10,300 employers hire or redesign jobs through MOM, WSG programmes in 2020

SOME 10,300 employers hired new staff or redesigned their jobs through the help of government-led programmes last year, a 45 per cent increase from the year before.

These placements were done through job transformation and career conversion programmes by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Workforce Singapore (WSG).

Of these, 1,500 employers, of which more than 90 per cent are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), ramped up their career conversion programmes for new hires, according to the 19th edition of the Jobs Situation Report on Friday. This is a 10 per cent increase compared to 2019.

Close to 350 employers transformed their jobs, through the Industry 4.0 Human Capital Initiative, Job Redesign Reskilling Programmes and enhanced support for Job Redesign under the Productivity Solutions Grant. About 90 per cent of them are SMEs.

In all, close to 55,000 locals were placed into jobs, traineeships and attachments last year.

These placements cut across broad sectors including construction, education and financial services.

In a joint statement, MOM and WSG said employers too experience several common challenges during the hiring process, even as jobseekers face barriers in finding job opportunities.

One issue is employers' general preference for experienced jobseekers, which MOM and WSG said they should consider reviewing.

"Skills shortages in emerging areas will often mean that demand outstrips supply, resulting in unfilled vacancies even as wages spike," they said.

Instead, they could tap government schemes that help with training, especially since many mid-career jobseekers have transferable skills and can be effective in new roles with the appropriate "skills top-up", MOM and WSG said.

Jobseekers also tend to have higher aspirations that go beyond remuneration, and employers who offer clear progression pathways that allow them to build meaningful careers tend to have recruitment success, they said.

"To improve their appeal to jobseekers, employers can consider redesigning job roles and emphasising their impact to society, articulating their plans to achieve business success and highlighting how they share gains and invest in people," said the authorities.

This means a rethink of their job descriptions, especially with detailed articulation of the role, and an openness to different skill sets could help get better responses from applicants, they added.

One such employer that has benefited from these workforce transformation programmes is Parkroyal on Kitchener Road.

The hotel redesigned jobs and trained its staff so that they can assume enhanced, tech-enabled roles.

It also took the downtime during the Covid-19 pandemic to increase their productivity and efficiency in day-to-day operations through technology.

For example, the average daily man hours taken for the housekeeping and maintenance teams to check on the guest rooms has been reduced from 12.5 to 2.5 hours with the use of a system called Inncom.