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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=452 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Published February 23, 2009
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Good response to Spur, Jobs Credit, says PM Lee
By LYNETTE KHOO
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PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government has received positive responses from companies to the enhanced funding support scheme for skills upgrading, Spur, as well as to the Jobs Credit Scheme.
Some 350 companies have signed up and 22,000 workers will participate in Spur, the acronym for Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience. Workers are already benefiting from the Jobs Credit Scheme, a $4.5 billion programme to be funded by past reserves.
'It's still early days - the Budget was barely a month ago - but the response so far has been good,' PM Lee told some 550 employers, unionists and government representatives at the Singapore Tripartism Forum yesterday.
Some companies are planning to use cash grants from the Jobs Credit Scheme to upgrade their workers. Others are sharing it with workers by avoiding wage cuts or giving a small wage increment.
Some firms are also deferring or reducing job cuts. There are also companies that are planning to use it to compete for more businesses, PM Lee noted.
For instance, IT outsourcing firm Xcellink Pte Ltd, which employs some 500 workers here, hopes to save the cash grants from the Jobs Credit in anticipation that the market will worsen, so that when demand plunges, it will not have to resort to retrenchments, its general manager Andy Sim said at the dialogue yesterday.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>A PSA representative said yesterday that the port has taken measures to counter the impact of the slowdown by reducing overtime work and scaling up retraining and upgrading of skills to help workers stay relevant.
According to G Rajendran, president of the Chemical Industries Employees' Union, some 15 companies in the chemicals industry are under the Spur programme and two companies on Jurong Island went full-time under the programme.
'Half of the chemical industry strength said they have benefited from the Jobs Credit,' Mr Rajendran said. ISK Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha of Japan, has benefited to the tune of about $1 million from the Jobs Credit, he added.
For hotel group Royal Plaza, the Jobs Credit Scheme will help save $600,000 over a year, 'which will help the cashflow, bottom line and meeting the hotel's quarterly budget', said senior engineering supervisor Abdul Subhan B S Hussein, who is also president of the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers' Union.
Royal Plaza on Scotts is estimated to save some $140,000 in absentee payroll costs by sending its employees to training programmes under Spur.
Loh Oun Hean, director of human resources at Deloitte and Touche, also spoke positively on the Jobs Credit Scheme during the dialogue session. He noted that the scheme provides some encouragement to the company's decision to employ some 150 new graduates here this year.
But for recruitment firm JCG Search International, the scheme has not staved off retrenchments which happened soon after the Budget was announced. Its CEO Joshua Yim told BT at the sidelines of the dialogue yesterday that the firm has shaved off some 15 per cent of its workforce as demand for its services has fallen by 50 per cent.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Good response to Spur, Jobs Credit, says PM Lee
By LYNETTE KHOO
<TABLE class=storyLinks cellSpacing=4 cellPadding=1 width=136 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR class=font10><TD align=right width=20>
</TD><TD>Email this article</TD></TR><TR class=font10><TD align=right width=20></TD><TD>Print article </TD></TR><TR class=font10><TD align=right width=20></TD><TD>Feedback</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government has received positive responses from companies to the enhanced funding support scheme for skills upgrading, Spur, as well as to the Jobs Credit Scheme.
Some 350 companies have signed up and 22,000 workers will participate in Spur, the acronym for Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience. Workers are already benefiting from the Jobs Credit Scheme, a $4.5 billion programme to be funded by past reserves.
'It's still early days - the Budget was barely a month ago - but the response so far has been good,' PM Lee told some 550 employers, unionists and government representatives at the Singapore Tripartism Forum yesterday.
Some companies are planning to use cash grants from the Jobs Credit Scheme to upgrade their workers. Others are sharing it with workers by avoiding wage cuts or giving a small wage increment.
Some firms are also deferring or reducing job cuts. There are also companies that are planning to use it to compete for more businesses, PM Lee noted.
For instance, IT outsourcing firm Xcellink Pte Ltd, which employs some 500 workers here, hopes to save the cash grants from the Jobs Credit in anticipation that the market will worsen, so that when demand plunges, it will not have to resort to retrenchments, its general manager Andy Sim said at the dialogue yesterday.
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According to G Rajendran, president of the Chemical Industries Employees' Union, some 15 companies in the chemicals industry are under the Spur programme and two companies on Jurong Island went full-time under the programme.
'Half of the chemical industry strength said they have benefited from the Jobs Credit,' Mr Rajendran said. ISK Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha of Japan, has benefited to the tune of about $1 million from the Jobs Credit, he added.
For hotel group Royal Plaza, the Jobs Credit Scheme will help save $600,000 over a year, 'which will help the cashflow, bottom line and meeting the hotel's quarterly budget', said senior engineering supervisor Abdul Subhan B S Hussein, who is also president of the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers' Union.
Royal Plaza on Scotts is estimated to save some $140,000 in absentee payroll costs by sending its employees to training programmes under Spur.
Loh Oun Hean, director of human resources at Deloitte and Touche, also spoke positively on the Jobs Credit Scheme during the dialogue session. He noted that the scheme provides some encouragement to the company's decision to employ some 150 new graduates here this year.
But for recruitment firm JCG Search International, the scheme has not staved off retrenchments which happened soon after the Budget was announced. Its CEO Joshua Yim told BT at the sidelines of the dialogue yesterday that the firm has shaved off some 15 per cent of its workforce as demand for its services has fallen by 50 per cent.
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