PME taskforce says it has not made progress on its unemployment benefits recommendations

A TASKFORCE pushing for fairness and job security for white-collar workers said on Wednesday (Oct 26) it has made progress on most recommendations it released a year ago, with the exception of one that calls for the introduction of unemployment benefits.

“The government has not responded and come up with a position on this yet, but we feel strongly for it because, particularly these days, it’s exacerbated by rising costs of living,” said Patrick Tay, who co-chairs the professionals, managers and executives (PME) taskforce.

Specifically, the taskforce is pushing for monetary support for workers who are involuntarily unemployed, although he did not specify an amount.

“We’re not going for a welfare situation – it’s interim support for them to tide over. And we know that many of the mature PMEs, for example, take a slightly longer time to get back to work or to get rehired,” he said.

Tay, who is also assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), said the affordability and sustainability of such a scheme as well as the presence of active labour market policies are likely to be the top three considerations in the minds of administrators and the government.

Active labour market policies refer to concurrent measures to help an unemployed person return to the workforce.

Some form of temporary unemployment benefits would be particularly useful at a time when the labour market is expected to worsen in the months ahead, even as unemployment rates reach a seven-year low, Tay said. He added that there are vulnerable segments who will likely be affected, based on learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the meantime, career conversion programmes also offer support to mid-career job seekers, especially when they are acquiring new skills, said fellow co-chair Sim Gim Guan, executive director of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF).

Such programmes offer salary and course fee support making it easier for companies to consider hiring someone who may not have the required skills from the get go, he said.

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Nonetheless, the taskforce has made progress on eight of the nine recommendations it put forth to the government last year aimed at improving job security and fair employment practices, Tay and Sim said.

For example, the government earlier this year implemented the Complementarity Assessment Framework (Compass) in response to calls for a more transparent system in the evaluation of Employment Pass applicants.

Tripartite partners will also be working with the Institute of Human Resource Professionals to train and certify one-third, or 12,000, HR professionals in Singapore by 2025. This is based on the taskforce’s recommendation that HR standards be improved to enhance fair employment practices while strengthening enforcement against errant companies with unfair practices.

Taskforce co-chairs said they were glad that the Ministry of Manpower has extended the Jobs Growth Incentive for another six months to March 2023 and made the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme a permanent one to better support mature PMEs.