Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said earlier today (9 May) that companies should hire people who held short-term COVID jobs. For example, the safe distancing ambassadors (SDAs) or people who worked at vaccination centers. These people are no longer needed now that most Singaporeans are vaccinated and we are easing our COVID restrictions.
“Many of these workers came from the F&B and retail sectors, and would thus possess the relevant skillsets as well as experience,”
Tan See Leng
Apparently Workforce Singapore (WSG) and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) will provide “employment facilitation”. Although they never say what the “employment facilitation” is.
Will companies want to hire them?
It is obvious that this is just another attempt by the government to play with numbers. They want to keep our unemployment rate low to look good. That’s why they are asking companies to hire them.
Yet at the same time we are keeping our doors wide open for 26-year-olds from South Asia and paying them above the average salary of local graduates. The government’s justifying that by saying that they are more experienced and qualified than us.
How can we expect companies to hire these SDAs then, if our graduates can’t even compete with the FTs? Instead of just asking companies to hire these SDAs, the government should really re-look into our manpower policies.
