Lim Swee Say: Don't look for plug-and-play kind of workers. Transform the job to make it attractive to locals.

Good news.

Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say said that more targeted help will be given to unemployed PMETs.

PMETs who have been out of work for 6 months or longer need personalized guidance from career coaches and employers who are willing to hire and train them even if they lack experience in a particular sector.

Mr Lim's message to employers:

Don't keep looking for so-called plug-and-play kind of workers. Don't keep looking for workers who can fit into your job 100 per cent.

In other words, employers must be willing to train a worker.

Of the local workers who were made redundant last year, PMETs were the hardest hit, making up 72% of them.

PMETs are also finding it harder to get back to work. The rate of re-entry for PMETs is 44%.

To help PMETs to get back to work, MOM has offered incentives for employers to hire them:

1. Training allowances of up to $4000 a month for those who go on training attachments;
2. Higher wage subsidies under the Career Support Programme for employers who hire PMETs aged 40 and above. Employers will now get wage subsidies for 18 months, up from 12 months.
3. Minimum salary of eligible workers will be lowered from $4000 to $3600 to allow smaller firms to join the programme.

The jobs are there but both employers and job seekers need to change their mindset to address the mismatched labour market.

While employers must be willing to hire workers who are not a perfect-fit, workers must be willing to go for training and to learn.

Foreign worker quota

Responding to business leaders he had met who appealed for a relaxation of the foreign worker quota, Mr Lim said businesses need to find a longer term solution.

"It is not a sustainable solution. The jobs are there. If they cannot find workers, can we transform the job, make it more of a better job to be more attractive to locals?" he said.

He was speaking at an Adapt and Grow Series career fair at the Lifelong Learning Institute at Paya Lebar organized by Workforce Singapore and NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute.

The fair featured about 260 job vacancies, each paying at least $3600 a month from over 20 companies under the Career Support Programme (CSP).