Job vacancies in Singapore’s retail sector not picked up
- Shawn Liew
- Topics: Home Page - News, Job Cuts, News, Singapore
Since April this year, Singapore’s retail sector has offered about 2,500 job opportunities and more than 1,000 training or attachment opportunities, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has reported in its ninth and latest edition of the Jobs Situation Report.
However, only 770 of these positions had been filled, leading Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Manpower Minister to suggest that job matching inherently takes time and is “not a straightforward affair.”
The retail sector contributes 1.6% to Singapore’s GDP and employs 4.1% of the total workforce. For the job and training opportunities available since April, there are 960 jobs for PMETs and 1,560 jobs for non-PMETs.
READ: Less than a third of job vacancies placed in Singapore
Earlier this month, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat had suggested that the job placement system needs to be improved to better match job candidates. One way, he said, is to look at how the database systems available can be better utilised for the purpose of job matching.
Heng was speaking after MOM reported that of the 117,500 jobs created by Singapore’s National Jobs Council, only 33,100 local job seekers were placed in these roles.
Singapore’s overall unemployment rate rose to 3.4% in August 2020, surpassing the 3.3% recorded in September 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis.
