THE Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) is helping businessmen to suss out Government programmes to ride out the recession.
It held its first briefing on the Skills Programme for Upgrading Resilience (Spur) for 120 company representatives on Tuesday.
Spur is a $600 million scheme which pays part of workers' wages while they are on training. Its goal is to minimise layoffs.
For small companies eyeing government-backed loans, the SCCCI is helping them with the massive paperwork necessary for loan applications, said secretary-general Lim Sah Soon.
The chamber also played middleman for its 4,000 corporate members and 130 trade associations when it urged the Government to reduce business costs in the upcoming Budget. It cited especially rents of HDB and JTC Corp spaces as well as property tax.
At Tuesday's briefing, company executives also sought clarification on the tripartite guidelines on how to manage excess manpower.
On hand to tackle their questions were officials from the Manpower Ministry and the Workforce Development Agency.
One was whether certain groups of employees, such as professionals or foreign workers, could qualify for the Spur scheme.
The answer: Yes, but not foreign workers.
Another question was whether employers needed workers' approval to reduce the monthly variable component of their salaries.
The answer: No, but it is very important to communicate the rationale of wage cuts to employees.
