With the government’s decision to curb the number of workers on S-Pass in the Service sector, citizens would assume that there would be more jobs opened to locals. However, unless the labour and hiring system clearly sanction it, and the citizens apply to it, this decision would only be as good as a plan.
However, with definite schemes set in place, the government has responded to the labour situation which the country is currently, and in future, is most likely to face.
Singapore Looks to Hire More Foreign PMETs
In a survey released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), there have been more job vacancies available to PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians) last year, as shared in a report by the Straits Times.
The report cited survey results which revealed that around 63,000 vacancies were made available as of September last year, up from 53,100 from the year before that.
Most of the job vacancies tagged for PMETs, who portion of vacancies saw an increase to 53% last year from 49% in 2017, and 48% in 2016.
Also, based on the survey, academic requirements were not among the primary consideration for filling in 52% of PMET vacancies last year.
Based on the results, teaching and training professionals were the most highly-recruited in this category followed by software, web and multimedia developers, and systems analysts in second and third spots, respectively.
Despite these figures, the latest labour market report released by MOM revealed that PMETs had accounted for a staggering 79.3% of retrenched residents in the 4th quarter of 2018.
At this point, it’s not clear whether having more job vacancies would allow those retrenched local PMETs to fill them.
Of note, the Minister of Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing announced last year that the government wants to promote a shift towards employing more higher value-added foreign workers (i.e. PMETs), which typically include those in IT, wealth management and biotechnology areas.
Chan hopes that foreign talents would help strengthen Singapore’s capabilities in those related areas. Moreover, companies which will employ foreign PMETs should help transfer expertise and technologies to locals, Chan explained.