<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Layoffs set to top 10,000 for first three months
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Forty per cent up from last quarter: Most losses in manufacturing sector </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Goh Chin Lian, Senior Political Correspondent
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->MORE than 10,000 workers are expected to be retrenched in the first three months of this year - a number equal to layoffs in an entire year when the economy is booming.
Labour chief Lim Swee Say gave this advance estimate yesterday, ahead of official figures from the Manpower Ministry which will come out only in late April.
The number is an increase from 7,000 layoffs in the previous quarter.
It is also double the 5,000 figure that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave in an interview with CNBC last Friday, which referred only to unionised workers.
Referring to the 5,000 figure, Mr Lim said: 'If you multiply that to include the non-unionised sector, the number would easily exceed 10,000 for the first quarter.'
The retrenchments in this quarter are expected to be mostly from the electronics and manufacturing sectors.
Speaking at a two-day civil service conference on organisational learning, Mr Lim said: 'We cannot stop retrenchments from going up. But we must try our best to help every one of these retrenched workers to go back to the job market, learn new skills, take on a new job.'
Analysts interviewed were not surprised by the 40 per cent increase in layoffs in this quarter compared to the previous quarter.
They expect even more layoffs in the months ahead as the full impact of the global recession becomes felt more deeply here.
DBS Bank economist Irvin Seah said job losses could be much higher than 10,000 if early termination of part-timers and contract workers is included in the calculation.
In the previous quarter, employers prematurely terminated the term contracts of 1,500 workers, on top of shedding another 7,000.
Mr Lim, a minister in the Prime Minister's Office, pointed out that there are still new jobs coming onstream despite the downturn.
'Jobs are still being created, demand is still there. What we have to do is to keep narrowing this gap in terms of skills, mindset and expectations between the jobs and job-seekers.'
He noted that the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) has a list of nearly 12,700 job openings in many sectors, ranging from pharmaceuticals and services to the public sector.
About four in 10 of these jobs pay more than $2,000 a month, he added.
But among the 7,500 job seekers who have approached e2i for help are those who do not have the right skills and attitudes for a new career.
These people must be prepared to go for training, e2i's chief executive officer Ang Hin Kee told The Straits Times.
Rank-and-file workers could take two days to complete a course in personal effectiveness, or up to 1-1/2 months if they also have to brush up on English language and customer service skills.
Professionals taking part in conversion programmes for a new career may need six to 18 months of training, he said.
In his speech at the conference, Mr Lim also defended the Government's decision not to cut the employers' contribution to the Central Provident Fund (CPF), but to implement the $4.5 billion Jobs Credit scheme that pays bosses a sum for every resident worker on their CPF payrolls.
A CPF cut would hurt the trust among employers, unions and workers, he said, as workers have been told for two decades that such a cut would be a blunt instrument, and urged to move towards a flexible wage system.
[email protected] See also Singapore
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Forty per cent up from last quarter: Most losses in manufacturing sector </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Goh Chin Lian, Senior Political Correspondent
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->MORE than 10,000 workers are expected to be retrenched in the first three months of this year - a number equal to layoffs in an entire year when the economy is booming.
Labour chief Lim Swee Say gave this advance estimate yesterday, ahead of official figures from the Manpower Ministry which will come out only in late April.
The number is an increase from 7,000 layoffs in the previous quarter.
It is also double the 5,000 figure that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave in an interview with CNBC last Friday, which referred only to unionised workers.
Referring to the 5,000 figure, Mr Lim said: 'If you multiply that to include the non-unionised sector, the number would easily exceed 10,000 for the first quarter.'
The retrenchments in this quarter are expected to be mostly from the electronics and manufacturing sectors.
Speaking at a two-day civil service conference on organisational learning, Mr Lim said: 'We cannot stop retrenchments from going up. But we must try our best to help every one of these retrenched workers to go back to the job market, learn new skills, take on a new job.'
Analysts interviewed were not surprised by the 40 per cent increase in layoffs in this quarter compared to the previous quarter.
They expect even more layoffs in the months ahead as the full impact of the global recession becomes felt more deeply here.
DBS Bank economist Irvin Seah said job losses could be much higher than 10,000 if early termination of part-timers and contract workers is included in the calculation.
In the previous quarter, employers prematurely terminated the term contracts of 1,500 workers, on top of shedding another 7,000.
Mr Lim, a minister in the Prime Minister's Office, pointed out that there are still new jobs coming onstream despite the downturn.
'Jobs are still being created, demand is still there. What we have to do is to keep narrowing this gap in terms of skills, mindset and expectations between the jobs and job-seekers.'
He noted that the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) has a list of nearly 12,700 job openings in many sectors, ranging from pharmaceuticals and services to the public sector.
About four in 10 of these jobs pay more than $2,000 a month, he added.
But among the 7,500 job seekers who have approached e2i for help are those who do not have the right skills and attitudes for a new career.
These people must be prepared to go for training, e2i's chief executive officer Ang Hin Kee told The Straits Times.
Rank-and-file workers could take two days to complete a course in personal effectiveness, or up to 1-1/2 months if they also have to brush up on English language and customer service skills.
Professionals taking part in conversion programmes for a new career may need six to 18 months of training, he said.
In his speech at the conference, Mr Lim also defended the Government's decision not to cut the employers' contribution to the Central Provident Fund (CPF), but to implement the $4.5 billion Jobs Credit scheme that pays bosses a sum for every resident worker on their CPF payrolls.
A CPF cut would hurt the trust among employers, unions and workers, he said, as workers have been told for two decades that such a cut would be a blunt instrument, and urged to move towards a flexible wage system.
[email protected] See also Singapore
