LABOUR chief Lim Swee Say warned on Thursday that Singapore could see a second wave of retrenchments. The first wave hit just after the Chinese New Year festivities in February, when companies began to axe workers in large numbers.
Some 800 to 900 jobs were shed weekly for a month following the holidays, he said. But it slowed significantly after the Government's Jobs Credit scheme and Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) kicked in, he added.
The numbers fell to about 200 to 300 a week. 'Since then it's stayed at that level,' he added.
The $4.5 billion Jobs Credit scheme pays for part of a local worker's salary, while the $650 million Spur sponsors workers' training.
But the slowdown in pace is just the calm before the storm, said Mr Lim, a Minister in the Prime Minister's Office.
'We must not assume that retrenchment will now subside and stay low at this current level for the rest of the year. We must be prepared that there could be a second wave of retrenchment coming on board.'
He said it was anybody's guess how big the retrenchment numbers would be in the second wave but the Government and the labour movement were prepared.
Mr Lim was speaking to reporters after accompanying Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on a visit to NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute (e2i), a training and job matching centre in Redhill Road.
He also agreed with Mr Lee that Singapore could have suffered an even bigger loss of jobs in the first three months of this year if not for such programmes as Spur and the Jobs Credit scheme.
Mr Lee had said that job losses in the first quarter would probably exceed 10,000.
- The Straits Times
No comments:
Post a Comment