This target, announced by labour chief Lim Swee Say yesterday, marks a significant increase over the 26,800 it reached out to last year.

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

Many of them will be hothoused at the upcoming Employment and Employability Institute, said Mr Lim at the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) annual workplan seminar to set goals for the labour movement. It was attended by about 500 people, including business leaders and government officials.

The centre in Bukit Merah is a one-stop shop for skills upgrading, job placement and career consulting, among other services. It will be officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.

The institute aside, the cogwheels of assistance for such groups have been in motion since last year, when NTUC implemented a host of programmes to help them get jobs. These range from job fairs to coax women back to work, 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.

'Will this come true? We have no idea,' Mr Lim told reporters after the seminar.

'But regardless of what happens in 2008...let us continue to make sure that we do better than the rest of the world, so that our workers in Singapore can cope with higher energy prices and higher cost of living better than workers in other parts of the world.'

His optimism on the jobs-creation front is grounded in the fact that the economic boom in the past few years has created a labour market hungry for workers.

NTUC's latest plan to boost job opportunities for Singaporeans involves three major thrusts.

Firstly, convincing those who have left or are thinking of leaving the workforce to reconsider their options.

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, to help them earn more or face brighter career prospects.

Cabbies, for example, will soon be trained under a new scheme to boost their service standards to qualify for 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.

Mr Lim stressed that such help programmes should not only benefit workers, but also make business sense for companies.

Doing so, he added, would ensure companies do not back out of taking on such workers even if a global economic slowdown occurs.

Human resources experts interviewed by The Straits Times were optimistic of NTUC's plans to reach out to more workers.

Ms Annie Yap, chief executive officer of human resources consultancy GMP, called it a 'well-timed move'.

'Unlike during boom time, when there is little time to do anything else other than ramping up the number of employees, companies now will have time during the slowdown to transform and restructure their workforce.'

klin@sph.com.sg