Extract from  Parliament report - 20th July, 2009

Mdm Halimah Yacob (MP for Jurong GRC) asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how many Professional, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) were retrenched in the first quarter of 2009; (b) what measures are there in place to assist retrenched PMETs; (c) how many have participated in the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) programmes; and (d) how many have been placed in jobs.

 Mr Liang Eng Hwa (MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will consider giving training allowances under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) scheme to PMETs who are badly hit in this economic downturn and incentivising them to re-skill and up-skill.

Minister for Manpower, Mr Gan Kim Yong:  Sir, a total of 4,730 Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) were made redundant in the first quarter of 2009. 

 To help PMETs through this difficult time, we have put in place a number of measures under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR).  PMETs can enhance their skills and employment prospect by participating in the Professional Skills Programme (PSP) under SPUR where they can tap on skills upgrading courses which enable them to improve their skills and employability in a similar industry; skills conversion programmes which help them to switch career to a new profession;  or tertiary upgrading through degree and post-graduate courses in  selected areas, such as aerospace, chemicals, sustainable building design, social work, integrated circuit design and logistics and supply chain; and they can also tap on career and employability workshops to enhance their generic employment skills.  Overall, as at end May 2009, about 36,000 PMETs have been trained or committed to training under PSP.  Of these, about one-third are self-employed.

To Mr Liang Eng Hwa's question, there are currently over 40 conversion programmes catering to PMETs under the PSP.  These cover a wide range of sectors, such as aerospace, creative industries, early childhood education, healthcare, manufacturing, tourism and retail.  These Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) provide trainees with a monthly training stipend of about $1,000 per month. The trainees are required to work in the industry for a minimum service period thereafter.

One example is 32-year old Ms Jeannie Elizabeth Koh who was working as an Operations Manager at Strategic Pte Ltd before she was retrenched in February 2009.  She enrolled in the PCP for Registered Nurses with the National University Hospital as her sponsor and receives a monthly training allowance of $1,000.  She is now in the first year of the two-year course at Nanyang Polytechnic and will start work at NUH when she completes the course. To make the course more attractive to people like Jeannie, it has been fast-tracked to two years and is fully subsidised by WDA and the sponsoring hospital.

For PMETs who undertake SPUR courses other than PCPs, they still benefit from the generous 90% subsidy of the course fees.

At the May Day Rally this year, the Prime Minister announced further assistance for PMETs affected by the downturn.  Firstly, the absentee payroll cap under SPUR was increased from $6 to $10 per hour to support training for PMETs.  Secondly, we launched the PSP traineeship scheme to provide retrenched PMETs with internship opportunities in sectors with good growth potential so as to equip them with relevant job experience and enhance their employability.  As at end-May 2009, about 110 companies have committed to offering 1,200 traineeships under this scheme.

PMETs can approach the career centres at the Community Development Councils (CDCs) and NTUC's e2i, which work with WDA to assist them in meeting their employment and training needs.  In the first six months since SPUR was launched, about 2,600 PMETs have been placed into jobs via various initiatives under SPUR, including efforts by the career centres at the CDCs and NTUC's e2i.  There are still jobs available in various sectors such as education, childcare, tourism, F&B and public administration. 

My Ministry will continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide more targeted help, should the situation warrant it.

Mdm Halimah Yacob:   Could I ask the Minister for his assessment of whether the problems affecting the PMETs will become worse?  Do we see the PMETs becoming a bigger challenge for us, in terms of those who are unemployed in the current economic situation that we are faced with?  I would also like to ask the Minister what more can be done in order to assist the PMETs because I have heard the programmes being mentioned, but the general sense on the ground is that the support and help, the infrastructure for PMETs is a lot less established compared to that for non-PMET workers who have lost their jobs or in need of help.  This also applies for PMETs who are in need of support to move from sectors that are perceived as not doing well and wanting to move to sectors that are doing better because their jobs are in jeopardy.  What assistance is going to be rendered to them?

Mr Gan Kim Yong:  Sir, I think the outlook, as I said, remains uncertain.  But I believe if we can work together with our tripartite partners, the unions, the employers' federation and also with the job seekers, we will be able to contain the problem, ie, to minimise the number of PMETs affected by retrenchments and to minimise the number of PMETs that remained unemployed.  But PMETs generally have greater difficulties looking for new jobs, especially in a different industry because their skills, especially technical skills, are quite specialised.  So it is important for us, as Mdm Halimah pointed out, to find ways to help them to switch career paths, especially from industries or specific sectors that are not growing, to sectors that have more opportunities today.  We have quite a lot of conversion programmes - I mentioned 40.  I also mentioned an example of a PMET who has successfully switched from an Operations Manager to the healthcare industry.  These are some examples of successful conversions and we need to do more of these.  I also mentioned earlier that the PMET programme has been enhanced over the last few months, in order to reach out and help them.  But over the last few years, if you look back, most of the workers who were affected tended to come from the rank and file.  This time round, the recession is likely to hit the PMETs more than previous recessions.  By and large, if you look at the macro picture, the rank-and-file workers are also being affected, and therefore while we focus on helping the PMETs, we must not ignore the needs of the rank-and-file workers as well.  I think we need to take a balanced approach.  While we reach out to help the rank and file, we also have specialised programmes like PSP to reach out and help the PMETs.  We will continue to work with our tripartite partners to see how we can improve the effectiveness of all these programmes that we have put in place.

Mr Speaker:  Mr Liang, one last question.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa:   Sir, the financial and social impact faced by the unemployed PMETs is not any less dire compared to the low skilled workers.  I would like to ask the Minister whether the Ministry will review the criteria for awarding of the training allowance under the SPUR.  In particular, doing away with using the simple cut off of the "A" level qualification, to allocate the training allowance.  And, secondly, relating to PMETs, whether the Minister can shed some light with regard to the Ministry's efforts to tighten controls on the S-Pass and whether, in the Minister's view, a more discerning S-Pass criterion is needed to improve the employment prospects of Singaporean PMETs in this downturn?

Mr Gan Kim Yong:   Sir, with regard to the training allowance for workers who have undergone training, the purpose of the training allowance is not really to address the daily cost of living of the unemployed.  We have other programmes, like ComCare Fund, and so on, and for the individuals, we have also provided GST credits and various rebates to help them deal with their cost of living.  The main purpose of the training allowance is to help the trainee overcome some of the costs related to the training, like transport cost, and so on.  I think it is important for us to bear that in mind.  For PMETs who are going for longer-term courses, especially the various conversion courses, many of them, as I mentioned in the example I quoted, do receive a monthly stipend even if they are PMETs.  As the Member pointed out, those who have more than "A" level qualifications, and on a diploma course, they will also be granted a stipend of up to $1,000.  So the programme is in place.  As far as controls on S Pass holders, I mentioned earlier this year during the COS that we are enhancing the quality of S-Passes.  We have raised the quality bar, the admission criteria for S-Passes.  This is important as part of our overall strategy to upgrade the quality of our workforce.  We have provided training and upgrading opportunities for our local workforce.  For foreign workforce, we also have to continue to enhance the quality by raising the entry bar, by raising the qualification that is needed to be granted S-Passes.  So through these various measures, we will strike a delicate balance between foreign workers and local workers to make sure that the foreign workforce in our midst will continue to contribute and augment our local workforce so that we can support economic growth in the long term.