Debated in Parliament on 8 Jan 2018.
Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how many applications for job matching have been received by Workforce Singapore (WSG) since its inception; (b) how many applicants have been successfully matched with jobs; and (c) what is WSG doing to improve its job-matching success rate.
In the 12 months since the inception of Workforce Singapore (WSG), that is, the fourth quarter (4Q) 2016 – 3Q2017, more than 23,000 jobseekers registered at WSG’s and the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC's)-Employment and Employability Institute's (e2i's) career centres for career matching services, and about 14,000 jobseekers were placed through these services. In addition, about a further 10,000 were placed through other Adapt and Grow programmes to address wage and skills mismatches. Of all the jobseekers placed, more than half were professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), more than half were aged 40 and above, and about a third were long-term unemployed (LTU).
Since July 2017, WSG's career centres have been remodelled and rebranded as Careers Connect with an expanded suite of customised career matching services. Jobseekers who require more in-depth support can undergo tailored career management and counselling programmes and receive dedicated one-to-one career coaching suited to their needs.
We had also enhanced our programmes under the Adapt and Grow initiative in 2017, such as the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) and the Career Support Programme (CSP), to provide more training and wage support to jobseekers, especially the mature and LTU, and employers to help overcome mismatches arising from skills or wage expectation gaps.
PAPERCUTS