The ministry is calling for ‘greater effort’ to bridge the ongoing skills gap in Singapore
Singapore’s labour market showed improvement in Q3, according to the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) latest report.
Retrenchments stayed low, while re-entry of retrenched workers improved. The top reason cited for retrenchment exercises remains business restructuring and reorganisation.
However, unemployment has gone up slightly, with skills mismatches affecting jobseekers’ chances.
“While job vacancies have fallen, job opportunities remain available, particularly for PMETs in Services sectors,” MOM said.
“This suggests that greater effort will be needed to help unemployed jobseekers overcome skills mismatches with the remaining vacancies.”
READ MORE: Is the skills gap in Singapore real?
In addition to government efforts to help reskill jobseekers, MOM encourages employers to push forward business transformation efforts and tap on Adapt & Grow programs to access a wider pool of talent and meet their manpower needs.
“Unemployment and long-term unemployment rates inched up,” MOM said. “This may have been a result of hiring caution as can be seen in the smaller number of vacancies.”
However, job vacancies for PMETs remain in sectors like Community, Social & Personal Services, Financial & Insurance Services, Professional Services and Information & Communications.
Huishan Lim, general manager at FastJobs Singapore spoke to HRD to share insights and forecast for Singapore’s labour landscape.`
“Despite tighter labour conditions and poorer economic outlook for 2020, we expect rank & file roles in the service industries to continue to have a strong demand for local labour,” Lim said.
“Anecdotal checks with our key clients showed that they expect their hiring needs to increase in 2020.
“While short-term jobseeking opportunities will remain robust, we see that against the backdrop of intensifying digital disruption, more employers are looking at redesigning jobs and adding technology into their core business.
“Re-skilling and second-skilling will grow in importance in 2020 for jobseekers to sustain their competitiveness and employability in the medium term.”
