SINGAPORE: About 30,000 workers in Food and Beverage (F&B) establishments will benefit from higher wages through the National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) e2i’s (Employment and Employability Institute) Inclusive Growth Programme.
The S$100 million Inclusive Growth Programme offers up to 50 per cent funding for businesses to implement initiatives to improve productivity such as purchase of new equipment, automation, workflow redesign or staff training.
As of January, there are 400 F&B companies – 95 per cent of them SMEs – which have implemented more than 500 productivity projects with e2i. Their workers will receive an average wage increase of 13 per cent, e2i said.
The A-One Claypot House at Kallang Wave Mall is one such F&B outlet which has tapped on the programme. It has introduced initiatives such as an inventory management system and an auto-adjustable table base. Workers no longer need to waste time stabilising tables by placing cardboards at the base of the table so as to ensure that hot food in the claypots do not spill over.
The company said these productivity improvements have translated to higher wages, such that its part-time rate has now increased from S$7 to S$9 per hour. Seventy per cent of its staff is Singaporean.
The Inclusive Growth Programme was introduced in 2010, and has benefited 83,000 workers so far. e2i is aiming to make this 100,000 workers by the end of this year.
news source & image credits: channelnewsasia.com
