CREATING GOOD JOBS FOR SINGAPOREANS
Dr Tan said building a strong economy is essential to create good jobs for Singaporeans.
Over the years, the country has identified promising sectors such as fintech and artificial intelligence.
Singapore is also looking at ways to better support those who are unemployed, but the aim is still to help as many of them bounce back into a job.
Singapore’s labour market continued to improve in the third quarter of this year, according to estimates released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Oct 28.
The country’s total employment – excluding migrant domestic workers – grew by 75,600.
However, unemployment rates and retrenchments also rose in the third quarter.
After falling to a six-year low in August this year, unemployment rates edged up slightly in September to 2 per cent overall, 2.9 per cent for residents and 3.1 per cent for citizens. MOM said that the rates were within the pre-COVID-19 range.
While retrenchments also increased, the figure was lower than the pre-pandemic quarterly average.
At a dialogue under the Forward Singapore initiative on Wednesday, Dr Tan said: “We are now looking very carefully at how to provide better support to displaced workers.
“And we will be managing it in the many weeks ahead, how to structure this carefully, because this is a fine balancing act.”