UP TO $40,000 in financial assistance is being offered to professionals with viable ideas for a social enterprise that will benefit residents in the North West district.
It is one of several initiatives being rolled out by North West Community Development Council, to assist the increasing number of PMETs, or professionals, managers, executives and technicians, coming forward for job assistance.
The money is being pledged by two volunteers in the North West CDC, as part of a tie-up between Republic Polytechnic and SPRING Singapore.
Forty individuals, both employed and unemployed, are currently studying for a Certificate in Business Skills for Start-Up, with course fees 90 per cent subsidised by SPRING.
At the end of the course, participants will present their business proposals to a panel of venture capitalists. Members of the panel, which includes the two volunteers, will invest in the most viable proposals.
While the CDC's traditional focus has been on helping rank and file blue-collar workers, North West mayor Dr Teo Ho Pin said the new initiatives were a response to the 'sudden surge' in PMETs coming forward for job assistance in the past year.
For the period Jan 2008 - Sept 2008, the CDC saw an average of 48 such job-seekers each month. The number surged to 125 a month from October until August 2009. It hit a peak of 300 in Mar before falling back down.
Other CDCs have also reported a more than 100 per cent increase in the number of PMET job seekers.
From January to August 2009, the South West CDC saw an average of 141 job applications from PMETs each month. This was a 187 per cent increase from the average of 49 per month in the same period last year.
North West is currently assisting about 3,200 job-seekers, of whom 600 are PMETs who have been unemployed for an average of one to three months. They range from engineers to administrators and salesmen.
- The Straits Times
No comments:
Post a Comment