A JOB fair in Choa Chu Kang offering 300 government jobs yesterday pulled in 500 job seekers.

The event at Yew Tee Community Club was targeted at professionals, managers, executives and technicians, collectively known as PMETs.

The jobs available ranged from administrative posts to managerial and engineering positions in five agencies, namely the Land Transport Authority, the Ministry of Manpower, the National Environment Agency, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fair was organised by the South West Community Development Council (CDC).

Dr Amy Khor, Mayor of South West District, said the demand for government jobs probably arises from the perception in the market that such jobs are a lot more secure in these uncertain times.

The Government expects to create more than 10,000 jobs in the civil service in the next five years, she noted.

These openings were planned but had been brought forward in view of the economic downturn, she explained.

Job seeker Jeremy Yap, 31, a former communications manager, agreed that government jobs are now attractive for their stability and are considered an 'iron rice bowl'.

Between October 2007 and May last year, the CDC had an average of 359 job seekers approaching it for help every month. But between last October and May this year, after the economic crisis hit, the number hit 696 a month.

Of the 4,500 job seekers the CDC has in its database, about 1,000 are PMETs, the group which a Manpower Ministry survey shows to have been the hardest hit by the economic downturn in the last quarter of last year.

To cope with the rising demand for jobs, the CDC has teamed up with the WDA to run more recruitment exercises - eight instead of three a month starting this year. Their job placement success rate is about 30 per cent.

To complement the job fair, the CDC yesterday held a closed-door networking session between a group of PMETs and HR personnel from the five government agencies.