Chairman Sir,
As at June 2009, there were 87,400 resident employees on short term contracts of less than 3 months and 156,200 residents on part-time employment. About half of these employees are in the older age group and majority of them have lower educational qualification with a gross monthly income of below $1,000.
I am of the view that the number under this category of employees would increase over time because company wanted flexible manpower and being able to response faster to changing demand and cost variation as business environment changes. Secondly, as our society matures with an increased number of aging employees, more people may prefer such mode of employment as seniors may not want to work full time.
Contract and part-time workers may not necessary be low wage and low productivity. Some studies have shown that part-time workers can be as productive as full-time workers and companies employing part timer do not necessary suffer low productivity. I understand that in Netherlands in which a relatively large share of the workforce works part-time, achieve high labour productivity. Hence, I believe that there is much room for improvement in productivity and income of our contract and part-time workers.
Sir, given the current educational profile of the employees in this group, a targeted approach is needed to improve the productivity and income. ESC proposes to introduce a broad-based incentive scheme to encourage employers to send their workers for training & develop structured program to train and place low-wage workers in better jobs, I would like to know what are the detail mechanism and new initiatives to work in line with ESC’s recommendations & to raise the productivity of this group of worker.
Next, with the likely trend of short term contract and part time workers to increase in the future, I would like to know whether MOM will develop strategy to include such employees in the productivity upgrading process.
(Note: this speech was delivered in Parliament on 11 Mar 2010.)
