Vacancies in National Jobs Bank Taken Up by Singaporeans

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry tracks what proportion of the Jobs Bank posts are eventually secured by Singaporeans; (b) if not, whether there are plans to measure and publish such data by requiring employers to disclose the outcome of their job postings; and (c) whether such data can be cross-referenced with data from Employment Pass and S-Pass application processes to yield patterns and causes for PMET jobs not going to Singaporeans.

To date, more than 31,000 Singaporeans have signed up with the Jobs Bank and more than 10,000 employers have come on board and are actively posting job vacancies. There are over 65,000 jobs available on the Jobs Bank today. The feedback from both employers and jobseekers has also been positive. It is an encouraging start and we hope more employers and Singaporean job seekers would use it over time.

The Jobs Bank was intended to facilitate a fair hiring process and greater awareness of job vacancies available for Singaporean job seekers. Singaporean jobseekers are now able to make job applications directly through the Jobs Bank for a comprehensive list of job openings.

The Jobs Bank and the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) was not, however, set up to guarantee local jobseekers that they will always get the job. This will continue to be determined on the basis of merit and to the best applicant for the job. There can be various reasons why an employer may not end up hiring the Singaporean candidate after considering applications fairly. For example, in the IT sector, there could be jobs that require technical skills or domain knowledge of legacy programming languages, which IT firms use in supporting legacy IT systems of many companies that our local workforce may not possess in sufficient numbers. Likewise, Singaporean jobseekers have their reasons for not accepting job offers, for example, if employers are unable to meet their expectations in terms of job scope and other personal considerations.

Singaporeans may also get placed in jobs through means other than the Jobs Bank. For example, Singaporeans may be hired directly by the firm or through head-hunters or private job portals and other job advertisements. Even when Singaporeans apply for a job that they see on the Jobs Bank, we cannot directly track this. For example, job seekers may apply through firms’ in-house HR portals. Therefore, data on the number of Singaporeans who were placed in a job vacancy which was advertised on the Jobs Bank would not be a representative or accurate indicator of how well Singaporeans are doing in the labour market in general.

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Rather, what is important to us is whether the overall labour market ecosystem benefits Singaporean job seekers. This goes beyond the Jobs Bank and involves broader factors, such as the number and types of jobs being created, and whether our people have the skills and passion for the job. We track and report indicators of citizen employment outcomes regularly and the situation is healthy. The seasonally adjusted citizen unemployment rate is 3.0%1 and remains much lower than those of many other countries, while Singaporean workers have enjoyed positive real wage growth over the last five years2.

We are, at the same time, keeping a close watch on firms' hiring patterns. If a firm has a disproportionately low percentage of professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) who are Singaporeans compared to their industry peers, we will initiate closer scrutiny of the firm to find out more details about the hiring practices and plans to develop Singaporeans for more senior positions. The Ministry of Manpower will assess if HR practices are fair in these firms. If they are not, we will ask the firm to work out a plan to make improvements. Should a firm remain uncooperative, or not adhere to the plan, it may have its work pass privileges curtailed.