Debated in Parliament on 1 Mar 2018.
Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Manpower (a) which are the top five industries that freelancers are venturing into; and (b) whether more grants and mentorship programmes will be given to support freelancers outside of the creative industry.
Mr Speaker, I will be answering Question No 4. The top five occupations for self-employed persons (SEPs) without employees, or more informally "freelancers", are taxi drivers, real estate agents, working proprietors, insurance agents and private hire car drivers.
The Government provides skills development and training support for all workers, both employees and SEPs, through initiatives, such as those under SkillsFuture (SSG). All SEPs, not just those in the creative industry, can access subsidised courses offered by Continuing Education and Training Centres appointed by SkillsFuture Singapore as well as certifiable courses that receive funding support of SSG. Eligible trainees can also apply for a training allowance under the Workfare Training Support scheme. We encourage all workers, including SEPs, to take advantage of such schemes to upgrade and improve skills and competencies continuously.
Mr Speaker: Dr Lim Wee Kiak.
Mr Speaker, I would like to thank the Second Minister for her reply. Let me just ask her one supplementary question regarding the top five industries that freelancers have ventured into. The Second Minister mentioned there are schemes to help them. How well are these schemes currently taken up? Can more be done to help them? I understand that this group is also not a permanent group; they are a transient group. Some of them will be freelancers for a while, and then they will find a full-time job, and then they may go back again. The issue now is how to help them to continue to upskill. We are also worried about them being stagnant in one position and miss out the entire innovativeness of the economy as the economy improves. Can the Second Minister update us as to how much the freelancers in these five industries utilise the schemes she just mentioned?
Mr Speaker, the Member is right that we also want the self-employed persons to be able to keep up with all the changes that are happening within our economy.
Where there are associations, for example, the sports coaches or the National Taxi Association, there have been mechanisms for outreach and we can certainly intensify the efforts. The plan is to do so. I will be talking about this during the Committee of Supply debate for the Ministry of Manpower.
Where there are no associations, it becomes a bit harder. The reason is because if you look at the landscape of self-employed persons, although the numbers have been largely stable over the years, the occupations are very varied. There are at least 100 occupations among all self-employed persons. They keep changing as well.
One assurance I can give to the Member is that where there is an association, where the self-employed persons have come together and they can identify common needs among themselves, then there is a way in which we can work with them to enable more of them to keep up with skills development.
PAPERCUTS