If you find the header familiar, then VERY GOOD JOB to you because it means you have been following Sureboh Singapore closely. Last month, we reported that the NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce is calling on the Gahmen to provide unemployment support & benefits for professionals, managers and executives (PMEs).
NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce calls on Gahmen to provide unemployment support & benefits for PMEs
On 1 November in Parliament, Labour MP Patrick Tay, in his speech, has also asked for the Gahmen to give unemployment income support for PMEs who are involuntarily unemployed.
It is not surprising to see Patrick Tay bringing this up again lah, because he co-chairs the taskforce mah and he has been niam-ing at the Gahmen to support the PMEs until PM Lee also scared of him.
Dear Chao Kuan Companies, still want to hire foreign workers siboh? Sorry hor not so easy liao!
In his speech, Patrick Tay said that findings of the NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce Report show that PMEs, especially the older ones, tend to be in a more jialat situation when retrenched during the current downturn because of these three reasons:
- higher costs of living because they are usually kiap in the middle, and they need to provide for their older parents and younger children
- they will take longer time to find a new job because of their age and lack of relevant skillsets
- they are more prone to suffering from pay-cut when they go back into the corporate world again because it is maciam a “restart” for them
The labour MP shared he gathered from the PMEs that an unemployment income support can help to provide some breathing space for the PMEs to retrain, upgrade their skills and look for suitable employment, while helping to alleviate their anxieties, and ensure that those who are unaware of avenues of help do not fall through the cracks.
Other than asking for the Gahmen to provide unemployment income support for PMEs who are involuntarily unemployed, Patrick Tay also ask the Gahmen to:
1. Review the Employment Assistance Payment payable
In case you didn’t know, the Employment Assistance Payment (EAP) is usually given to a worker when the tow kay is unable to offer re-employment to the worker when he or she retires at age 62 or older.
According to Patrick Tay, some chow kuan tow kays will purposely choose to give the EAP to their workers because they purposely don’t want to keep these older workers.
So hor, in order to deter these chow kuan tow kays from choosing this easier way out, Patrick Tay suggests that the Gahmen increase the EAP from the existing one-off payment equivalent to 3.5 months’ salary, subject to a minimum of $5,500 and maximum of $13,000 and continue to review and increase this amount if need be.
And if tow kay really bo bian need to ask these older workers to go, at least the increased EAP amount can help the older workers and tide them through the unemployment.
2. Provide short term salary support for companies
Reiterating the PME Taskforce’s recommendation, Patrick Tay also ask the Gahmen to consider providing a short-term salary support for companies who hire mature PMEs who are unemployed to lower the cost and risk for companies to hire this group of PMEs with relevant skills.
Something like help companies to share-share the cost in case some companies kiasi and don’t dare to hire older PMEs.
3. Make companies give Gahmen valid reason why they not re-employing older workers
Why this tow kay not re-employing the older worker liao? Is it because the older worker never perform up to tow kays’ standard? Or is it because the tow kay just want to discriminate against the older worker?
In his speech, Patrick Tay also suggests that moving forward, tow kays should justify properly in black and white why they decide to let older workers go instead of providing them with a re-employment option. This way, the tow kays cannot anyhowly smoke and discriminate against older workers liao.
4. Training and upgrading older workers
You never hear before old ginger is spicy ginger (姜还是老的辣)? Don’t look down on older workers leh.
As we embrace digital transformation, employers should also continue to train and upgrade older workers to help them keep up to the digital trends. Got so many incentives and support schemes for tow kays to tap on leh, no excuse for tow kays to not support older workers ok?
5. Re-examine and re-design jobs
With the COVID-19 pandemic, not only our lives have changed, but our work environment also changed. Now we can work-from-home, have meetings on Zoom.
As we move towards the “next normal”, Patrick Tay encourages tow kays to think about how various jobs can be re-designed and re-examined, to allow for older workers to continue working. He also ask the tow kays not to 嫌弃 (“look down”) older workers and view older workers as “slow”, “backward” or “expensive to hire”.
If you have time to read through his sibei and lor-soh speech, you can see his full post below:
https://www.facebook.com/100057569255350/posts/351620983433541/
Good luck to you if you decide to read hor.
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