SINGAPORE – Fresh graduates could get more support if the labour market worsens and long-term unemployment continues to rise, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng on Aug 22.
The Government is prepared to provide more help for this group, including funding more traineeships if the economic situation worsens, he said.
announced on Aug 22 a new government-funded scheme
called Graduate Industry Traineeships (GRIT) and GRIT@Gov that will offer up to 800 traineeships for fresh graduates across the private and public sectors.
Applications for the scheme open in October, offering positions across key growth sectors, with each traineeship lasting three to six months.
“What we envisage the scheme to do is to provide wider exposure, and the opportunity for training to build networks and also build bridges (with) all of these companies, and increase their experience,” said Dr Tan, speaking to the media on the sidelines of the OCBC Grow Your Way festival in Tanjong Pagar.
While the 800 roles are on the smaller side, these positions should not be seen in isolation, he said, as the public sector is offering about 2,400 immediate vacancies for fresh graduates via the Careers@Gov job portal. These include roles in data, tech and digital services.
“We are prepared to increase the level of support of fresh graduates, including funding even more traineeships if the labour market worsens,” said Dr Tan, adding that currently, the long-term unemployment rate is below 1 per cent.
“With a long-term unemployment of 0.9 per cent, that means the 2.1 per cent (of graduates) actually found a job within six months… so this is just churn in any healthy economy,” he added.
Resident and citizen unemployment rates in June stood at 2.9 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.
Addressing concerns about employers using the traineeships to get graduate labour at a lower cost, Dr Tan said that safeguards will be in place and the authorities have been “very careful” in terms of sizing the scheme.
“We don’t want it to cannibalise the more mature employees, so companies must not have retrenchment plans in place so that they can then use this as a cheap source of labour,” he said.
“And we will be very strict in terms of how we dispense and disburse these monies.”
