Helping Trade Associations, Chambers of Commerce and Professional Bodies to Run Career Events to Provide Career Advice and Online Resources for Jobseekers

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Manpower how does the Ministry work with trade associations, chambers of commerce and professional bodies to run career events, provide career advice and produce online career resources to support job seekers within their respective professions in their job-seeking efforts.

Workforce Singapore (WSG) provides employment facilitation services and programmes to help local workers secure jobs, and supports the transformation of the local workforce and industry. WSG has overall responsibility for designing the framework for service delivery. It works with strategic partners such as the Employment and Employability Institute (NTUC's e2i), Career Matching Providers (Ingeus and MAXIMUS), as well as Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs) and professional bodies to deliver these services.

The TACs and professional bodies bring certain strengths to the employment facilitation ecosystem, such as their wide network of industry professionals and in-depth knowledge of the jobs and skills in the sectors they oversee. For example, WSG works with the Singapore Computer Society (SCS) and the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) to provide sector-specific career matching services for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Financial Services sectors respectively. WSG provides funding support for SCS's Career Compass to run programmes such as career mentoring sessions and career preparatory workshops. In 2018, IBF set up IBF Careers Connect, with support from WSG and other agencies, to provide personalised career advisory and job matching services to locals exploring careers in the financial industry.

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, WSG has intensified efforts to curate job, traineeship and training opportunities for Singaporeans. WSG has tapped on its partnerships with TACs and professional bodies such as the Singapore Business Federation, the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants, Singapore Lift & Escalator Contractors & Manufacturers Association, the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises, and Singapore International Facility Management Association, to do so. These TACs and professional bodies activated their network of member companies, encouraging them to participate in WSG's Virtual Career Fairs. WSG also worked with TACs to ramp up career conversion programmes for roles that continue to be in demand, such as the Technology in Finance Immersion Programme that reskills mid-career jobseekers for roles in Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing and other emerging areas.

Additionally, WSG recently launched the volunteer Career Advisors initiative and appointed the pioneer batch of over 30 advisors for the ICT and Retail sectors who were nominated in consultation with the relevant TACs and professional bodies. The nominees, mostly industry veterans in their fields, have stepped forward to volunteer their time, professional experience and industry networks to provide peer support to their fellow workers in their career journey and job search.