This target, announced by labour chief Lim Swee Say during the National Trades Union Congress's annual workplan seminar on Tuesday, marks a significant increase over the 26,800 it reached out to last year.

Among those who stand to gain include low-wage earners, those who have left the workforce such as housewives and retirees, as well as professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs).

Many of them will be hot-housed at the upcoming Employment and Employability Institute (e2i). A one-stop shop for skills upgrading, job placement and career consulting, among other services, the centre will be officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.

The cogwheels of assistance for such groups have been in motion since last year, when the labour movement implemented a host of programmes to help them secure jobs.

They range from job fairs to coax women back into the workforce, to boosting the productivity and pay of security officers.

But Mr Lim wants the NTUC and its various partners to ramp up the job creation momentum this year, given the looming spectre of an economic slowdown and escalating living costs.

One target it has set for the year: getting 600 unionised companies to rehire seven in 10 workers who have hit the retirement age of 62 - ahead of the introduction of the re-employment law in 2012.

Secondly, more workers will be reskilled at their jobs, so that they can look forward to bigger pay packets or brighter career prospects.

Cabbies, for example, will soon be trained under a new Customer-Centric Initiative scheme to boost their service standards to qualify for additional assignments, such as ferrying delegates during international conferences held here.

The NTUC will also intensify efforts to place rank-and-file workers as well as displaced PMETs in suitable jobs.

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