42,000 workers have found jobs after Spur training

A year after the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) was launched, more than 260,000 workers have come on board. Of these, about one-third have been trained.

Giving an update on the initiative - launched in response to the onset of the recession - Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong told MediaCorp that out of the retrained workers, who were mainly from the hotel, food and beverage, and retail sectors, 42,000 have found jobs.

The programme, which will run until December next year, was well-received by small and medium enterprises.

Some 80 per cent of the 4,000 companies that have tapped on Spur employ fewer than 200 workers.

So far, $350 million or half of the Spur budget have been committed to help companies retrain workers.

Still, Mr Gan was concerned that the economic recovery meant some companies were scaling back on training.

The number of workers signing up had fallen from 30,000 in July to 20,000 in November - "partly because the economy is recovering and some companies need their workers on their shop floor", said Mr Gan, who stressed that it was not the time to "slow down on training".

- TODAY newspaper

Grants to help boost hiring

TWO new measures to help local workers get jobs and stay employed will cost the Government $100 million over two years.

One will give companies a grant of up to $400,000 to hire and hang on to trained workers.

This programme is called Spur-Jobs, which is an add-on to the existing Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) that subsidises the training of local workers, including permanent residents.

It will cost is about $50 million. The other measure will cost $50 million too and is under Spur as well.

It is for the programme that allows employers to claim from the Government a substantial part of a worker's salary when he goes for training.

This is the absentee payroll scheme and it has been enhanced to let employers claim a bigger amount from May 15.

Both new measures were announced at a May Day rally on Friday by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and on Sunday, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) released details of the changes.

Elaborating on them last night, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said the money would come from the $650 million allotted to Spur last December.

If necessary, he will ask the Finance Ministry for extra funds, Mr Gan told reporters ahead of a community event.

In its statement, MOM said that for Spur-Jobs, a company can also claim a grant of up to $3,000 to offset the cost of hiring and training each worker.

- The Straits Times