It is heartening to learn of the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) new initiative to help former professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) return to the workforce (New grant to help PMETs get back into workforce; July 28).

Under its work-trial scheme, a selected job seeker is trained on the job by an employer and receives a monthly allowance, while the employer receives a grant from Workforce Singapore to subsidise the payment.

It is hoped that more companies will make hiring the unemployed a priority and join the scheme to offer more jobs to them.

It is a win-win-win situation - companies get work done with experienced and highly motivated staff, workers keep themselves employed and productive, and the Government enlarges the pool of workers who contribute to the economy.

Companies can extend their corporate social responsibility to the unemployed by offering them full- or part-time jobs, long- or short-term jobs, or even ad-hoc assignments.

Contract jobs may be extended on a need basis in future.

Where it is feasible, a company could offer the same job to two or more part-time mature workers to share.

This way, more seniors can be gainfully employed.

In the evolving sharing economy, where businesses tap freelance services on demand, outsourcing work makes business sense, as overheads are kept low.

Joachim Sim