JOBS FOR SINGAPOREANS – THE BIGGEST PUSH EVER

Deputy Prime Minister, Heng Swee Keat, announced during his Ministerial Statement that the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) will be extended by up to seven months. We understand the concerns of many companies and have heard your calls to extend the JSS and help businesses retain their local workforce.

We are in an unusual situation. As Singapore gradually reopens our economy and borders, some sectors will recover faster than other, some may be completely transformed. Companies will therefore have to pivot, to position themselves better for the post-COVID-19 world.

This means new jobs opening up in some areas even as others see job losses. In the growing areas, we want to nudge employers to hire and also train Singaporeans.

This is why, in addition to heavily subsidised traineeships for fresh graduates and attachments for mid-career persons, we have just introduced the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI).

We are setting aside $1 billion for the JGI. The aim? Stretch employers’ budget for manpower growth to create more good jobs for our people.

How does JGI work?

Say Company A, which had 10 local staff on average in Jan-Aug, made 2 new hires in Sep and grew to 12 local staff. These 2 new local hires can attract salary support of 25% for the next 12 months for the first $5k of their salary. Say one of them is 45 years young, the salary support for him/her doubles to 50%. That’s up to $45,000 in total for both of them. Keep in mind that this comes on top of JSS for all 12 employees.

For Company A to continue enjoying JGI for the full 12 months, it must maintain a local workforce size of more than 10. However, each time there’s churn of the original team, the total JGI payout gets reduced proportionally. That’s fair, so companies don’t just benefit from a replacement spree. What happens if in Oct, one of the original 10 employees leaves Company A, but the company hires a 3rd local to replace him? Well, Company A now gets JGI for all 3 three new local hires, but at a 90% rate. 10% less because its original workforce shrunk by 10%. Still a very helpful level of support.

We will put out more detailed information later this month to help employers understand how JGI is computed.

But, put aside the math.

With JGI, what the company gets is very substantial $ savings on their wage bill that allows it to be bolder in manpower expansion, and bring forward hiring.

This is after all, Singapore’s biggest push ever for jobs to match the seriousness of impact of COVID-19 on businesses.

We are determined to help Singaporeans bounce back, sooner and more strongly than ever. - Jo Teo