Business closures, retrenchments, pay cuts, and a lot of uncertainty.
In addition to endangering lives, the Covid-19 outbreak has battered the economy and left many residents in Singapore without a job.
Things seem pretty bleak at the moment, but according to Manpower Minister Josephine Teo, the worst may be yet to come.
Over 25K Workers in S’pore Might Have Lost Their Jobs
What’s worrying the authorities is that the decline in total employment has been “sharper” than what preliminary data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) previously suggested.
According to TODAYonine, around 25,600 workers might have lost their jobs, 29 per cent more than the 19,900 indicated in the preliminary report.
MOM’s preliminary findings also suggested that employment had grown at a “modest pace” during the first quarter, but now they’ve found that it’s declined slightly.
Speaking to the media last Friday (12 June), Minister Teo said the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons had fallen to a decade low of 0.71 by March, down from 1.0 for the whole of 2019.
“That shows you how three months has changed the picture for job vacancies.”
Situation Could Worsen
The minister also warned that residents are yet to feel the “full effects” of the Covid-19 crisis, and that things are likely to get worse.
Reader: I thought this was Goody Feed, why are you bringing me down?
Well, do you want lies that’ll make you fleetingly happy or do you want the truth?
Reader: Lies, please.
Ok, everything will be back to normal tomorrow: unemployment will go down to zero, free cups of bubble tea will be distributed to residents by the authorities, and the Covid-19 virus will magically disappear.
Reader: Ah, that’s more like it. *naps*
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As I was saying, Minister Teo warned that things will get worse due that the fact that:
- A majority of the travel restrictions in place had yet to start in February
- The circuit breaker only started on 7 April
“In other words, the full effects of Covid-19 will certainly not have been felt in the first quarter of 2020,” she said.
This is why MOM is uncertain about how the second quarter will go.
“It’s best for us to get ready and be prepared for more job losses,” she said. “We have to try our very best to open up more pathways for the jobseekers”.
Minister Teo said mid-career workers could take up “pathway programmes” to acquire relevant work experience, especially in industries that are “positioned for growth” in the future.
Fresh graduates could also attend traineeships.
In other words, this would be a good time to upskill or reskill instead of wasting away your hours on Netflix.
“Although the outlook is very uncertain (and) we want to brace ourselves for difficult times ahead, there are opportunities that we can expand on that can help active jobseekers”, she said.
Not All Bad
However, as Minister Teo said, there are “still some silver linings” in the report for the first quarter.
According to the report, 3,220 people were retrenched in the first quarter of 2020, down from 3,230 in the first quarter of 2019.
It’s still a significant increase from the 2,670 in the last quarter of 2019, but nothing compared to the peak of 12,760 seen in 2009, during the global recession.
There was also an increase in the number of workers that were placed on a shorter work week or temporarily laid off for the first quarter of this year.
This suggests that many companies have implemented measures suggested by the government to save their employees’ jobs instead of laying them off or retrenching them.
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Moreover, while overall job vacancies decreased, some sectors, such as electronic manufacturing, information and communication, and health and social services, saw an increase.
No matter how bad it gets though, we’ll find a way to recover. We always have.
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