Expressing his views in Facebook following the advance release of 2016 labour report, NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay said, “The increase in resident unemployment to 3.2 per cent in December is a concern even though employment rose in Q4,” Business Times reports.

He further urged companies to be sensitive and responsible when dealing with redundancies. According to the labour market advance release findings, MOM said that the total employment in 2016 is estimated to have increased by 16,400 or 0.4 per cent, lower than the 32,300 or 0.9 per cent in 2015. This was the lowest growth since 2003 (-12,900 or -0.6 per cent).

For the whole of 2016, redundancies rose upto 19,000, growing steadily since 2010. Mr Tay emphasised on the need to look for new jobs, new skills training, such that workers are “ready with new skills, relevant to new jobs and resilient to new changes and challenges”.

The labour movement plans to double its efforts to encourage and help its workers re-skill, up-skill and second skill to remain employable in the current job market, while NTUC will continue to support workers affected by job loss to help them get back into the workforce as soon as possible. Besides being able and adaptable, it is important to help workers stay agile to embrace change and disruption.

He further added that the tripartite partners – NTUC, SNEF (Singapore National Employers Federation) and MOM (including Workforce Singapore, MOE/SkillsFuture Singapore and MTI/Economic Development Board) to work closer to support each other and to leverage on the various programmes and funding such that workers and companies can adapt and grow.

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