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Oral Answer by Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister for Manpower, to Parliamentary Question on the number of workers who found jobs through job fairs

Skills, training and development

Notice Paper No. 483 Of 2016 For The Sitting On 09 January 2017

Question No. 840 For Oral Answer

MP: Mr Leon Perera
To ask the Minister for Manpower how many workers have successfully found jobs through Government-supported job fairs each year over the past ten years.

Answer

  1. In the past 10 years from 2007 to Sep 2016, Government-funded career services and programmes operated mainly by the Workforce Development Agency (now Workforce Singapore – WSG) and NTUC-e2i have helped more than 160,000 jobseekers to secure employment. To maximise matching, our integrated suite of services and programmes include more than just job fairs, but also career guidance and counselling, job search coaching, employability camps, career preparatory events, as well as placement programmes such as Professional Conversion Programmes. On an annual basis, the number ranges from a high of more than 24,000 in 2009 to a low of about 13,500 in 2008, with an annual average of over 16,000.
  2. In assisting our jobseekers, we make special effort to help older jobseekers and the long-term unemployed. The outcome has been encouraging. Over the years, the profile of workers placed by our career centres has become more inclusive. The share of PMET placements has increased from 10% in 2007 to 37% in the first 9 months of 2016, while the proportion of older workers (aged 50 and above) has increased from 29% to 39% over the same 10-year period. What is most encouraging is that 35% who successfully found jobs in the first 9 months of 2016 were previously unemployed for six months or more.
  3. Through continued efforts with our tripartite partners, we will strive to quicken the transformation of industry to create better jobs, and quicken the re-development of our workforce to create better skills. We will also keep strengthening our career matching services to minimise missed matches and mismatches in the labour market as we go through this period of economic transition.