Debated in Parliament on 9 Mar 2022.
Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) in the past two years, what percentage of special needs adults are gainfully employed and how does this compare to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels; (b) what sectors are most of these adults employed in; (c) among those who are capable of working but remain unemployed, what are the common reasons; and (d) what forms of targeted help are available to them if they are unable to find employment after tapping on the various career placement and development programmes.
Mr Speaker, Sir, based on latest available data from the Comprehensive Labour Force Survey (CLFS), the average resident employment rate for persons with disabilities aged 15 to 64 was 30.1% in the period of 2020 to 2021, an increase from the pre-pandemic level of 28.2% in the period of 2018 to 2019. We are talking about two-year moving averages.
Most persons with disabilities work in the community, social and personal services, food and beverages services, and professional services sectors. Some common challenges that persons with disabilities face in securing employment include the need for additional support to adapt to the workplace and difficulties in communicating with co-workers and supervisors. Some employers are also concerned about the additional costs required to hire and support persons with disabilities, such as physical workplace modifications and the purchase of equipment.
We will continue to avail various measures to support the employment of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities seeking employment can approach SG Enable. The Open Door Programme, or ODP for short, administered by SG Enable, aims to support employers in hiring, training and integrating persons with disabilities into the workforce. Under ODP, persons with disabilities receive up to one year of job matching and customised employment support from trained job coaches. Grants under ODP provide help to support the cost of job redesign, workplace modifications and subsidies for workshops that prepare employers and their employees without disabilities to interact, hire, integrate and retain employees with disabilities in their organisation. Between 2014 and 2021, SG Enable and its job placement partners helped to place over 3,500 clients in employment. In addition, about 600 organisations have participated in training to learn skills on how to recruit and integrate persons with disabilities at their workplace.
The Government also supports employers of persons with disabilities with the Enabling Employment Credit (EEC), which provides them with wage offsets of up to 30% for each Singaporean employee with disability earning below $4,000 per month. In the first half of 2021, more than 5,200 employers hired more than 8,600 persons with disabilities with support from EEC.
Employers who expand local hiring may also be eligible for wage support under the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI). Based on latest available data, more than 2,900 persons with disabilities were hired between September 2020 and August 2021 with support from JGI. JGI will be extended till September 2022 and we encourage employers to tap on Government support to continue hiring more local persons with disabilities.
Besides enabling employers to hire persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities can also tap on the ODP Training Grant to attend training courses to develop new, or improve existing skillsets to boost their employability. Between 2014 and 2021, SG Enable and its partners trained more than 2,800 persons with disabilities.
To provide targeted employment support for persons with disabilities amid the pandemic, SG Enable introduced three new programmes under the National Jobs Council – Place-and-Train, Attach-and-Train and Skills Development Programme – to provide customised employment, traineeships and skills upgrading opportunities last year. Close to 300 job and training opportunities have been created for persons with disabilities under these programmes.
Mr Yip Hon Weng.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his reply. Besides SG Enable, will the Ministry consider working with Workforce Singapore and e2i for job-matching of special needs adults with suitable employers, with the appropriate funding schemes.
Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for his supplementary question. Yes, operationally, SG Enable is already working very closely with Workforce Singapore (WSG) and e2i. Whenever WSG and e2i receive the call for help from persons with disabilities, they do refer cases to SG Enable. At the strategy level, we also have a WSG representative on the board of SG Enable; and ODP is actually funded by WSG. So, there is definitely a close working relationship between WSG, e2i and SG Enable. We will seek to build on this foundation that we have.
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