Placement of Post-retirement Officers in New Jobs

Mr Desmond Choo asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) in the past three years, how many post-retirement officers has the Career Transition Office helped to place in new jobs; (b) of these officers, what is the percentage breakdown in terms of junior and senior officers; and (c) what types of jobs have they been placed in.

Madam, the Singapore Police Force set up a new unit, the Career Transition Office (CTO), which the Member mentioned in April 2016. This Office brings together all the existing efforts and programmes to help retiring officers. As the unit is newly set up, there are no statistics available as yet on its work.

The new CTO will give greater focus in our efforts to help retiring Police Officers secure good jobs after they leave the Police Force. Even before the CTO was set up, the Police Force has for many years been organising training programmes in areas, such as resume writing, job interview techniques and entrepreneurship skills, to help our retiring officers in their job search. In addition, Police would also share job opportunities from other Government agencies and Ministries when these Ministries and agencies approached Police to recruit retiring Police Officers. Over the past three years, about 300 Police Officers have received training for their post-retirement job search.

With the Police CTO, we will be able to do more. Efforts to help retiring Police Officers will be stepped up and done more purposefully. The Office will proactively source for suitable job opportunities for retiring Police Officers. The office will also provide career counselling to prepare our officers psychologically for the job search and the transition from uniformed to civilian life; equip them with new skills that are in demand; and actively reach out to prospective employers where our officers' experience and knowledge would be valued, for example, companies which need professionals with expertise in contingency and security planning, regulatory compliance and enforcement. The office will also collaborate with partners such, as the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to tap on their experience in these areas.

Besides the Police, other Home Team departments will also structure similar services for our retiring officers.

I thank the Senior Minister of State for his comprehensive answer. One supplementary question. I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State what is the percentage of retired officers who have been re-employed within the Home Team? Among those who are not offered re-employment, what are the key reasons and how would the new CTO assist them?

Madam, over the last three years, and this is before the CTO was set up, on average, about 110 or so Home Team uniformed service officers retired. Of these, about 60 would be from the Police Force. About 60% of these retiring officers each year would be re-employed within the Home Team, whether it is back within the Police Force or other parts of the Home Team. The remaining 40% either did not take up the offer or were not offered re-employment for various reasons. Some, for example, would prefer to strike out on their own and do something different.

The CTO endeavours to serve every single retiring officer to provide them with skills, provide them with job offers and to make sure that they are taken care of after retirement.