More help for SMEs to restructure & place S’porean workers: Teo Ser Luck

SINGAPORE: More help is in the pipeline for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to restructure and get Singaporean workers to fill in job vacancies.

Minister of State for Trade and Industry Teo Ser Luck revealed this on Saturday as he launched a new Job Placement Centre at Punggol East.

Mr Teo said with the tightening of the labour, a lot of SMEs are facing a labour crunch and that he’s also noticing more unemployed Singaporeans at job fairs.

Often, he said, they lost their jobs because of structural changes in the company.

Mr Teo said such Job Placement Centres one can be a platform for SMEs to recruit Singaporean workers.

He also revealed plans to merge such centres with those that help SMEs restructure.

"Looking at the situation today with SMEs facing a labour crunch and Singaporeans also looking for job opportunities, I think this kind of platform is very necessary and I also want to be able to do the outreach to them.

"The placement centres can be done in several different ways. In this Budget, I’ll be rolling out some new programmes. We will have centres that will be stretching our arms to work with the small and medium enterprises out there to increase productivity. So such centres are larger centres to help businesses but I’m just thinking whether I can have it merged together with job placements centres. So they can have one—stop shop," he said.

Mr Teo added that he’s looking at setting up three more job placement centres within the Northeast District, this year.

— CNA/ck