Layoffs acceptable when...

IF COMPANIES are at risk of collapsing even after taking cost-cutting measures and getting grants from the Government to keep workers, the labour movement will accept retrenchment as a last resort, said labour chief Lim Swee Say yesterday.
Losing two or three jobs out of 10 was preferable to losing all the jobs should a company be forced to close, the secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) added.

Mr Lim, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, said: 'It's not possible for us to convince every company not to retrench, we have to be realistic...We accept that for some companies, retrenchment is inevitable.'

These would be companies that had first taken steps to cut non-wage costs before moving on to wage cuts, and then, despite new Budget measures, still remain in dire straits, he said.

Mr Lim cited Chartered Semiconductor as an example of such a company. It had already cut wages by 5 to 20 per cent, and last week, announced it would lay off 600 workers.

Madam Halimah Yacob, executive secretary of the United Workers of Electronic and Electrical Industries, had disclosed last Saturday that five other semiconductor companies planned to retrench a total of 1,000 workers after Feb 9, the last day of the Chinese New Year period.

Yesterday, Mr Lim said: 'We have been working with these companies since November, to cut costs and save jobs, and we have come to the same conclusion as these companies, that some level of retrenchment is unavoidable.'

However, with the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience, or Spur, the companies have agreed to train the workers first before laying them off so that they have a a better chance of getting another job, he said.

But other companies should not take advantage of these cases and use retrenchment as an easy way out to cut costs, Mr Lim cautioned.

'Globally, so many companies are retrenching workers. My own sense is, many are cutting jobs to save costs.

'But this is not the Singapore approach. We cut costs to save jobs,' Mr Lim told reporters after a dinner to mark the end of the nine-day River Hongbao Festival at the Marina Bay Floating Platform.

- The Straits Times