We thank Mr Foo Sing Kheng for his letter (Help unemployed workers in their prime find jobs more quickly, Sept 28).
The National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) and our unions empathise with the anxiety experienced by workers involved in any retrenchment exercise and stand ready to assist them in transiting to their next job.
In the most recent retrenchment exercise at Panasonic Appliances Refrigeration Devices Singapore, a unionised company under the United Workers of Electronics and Electrical Industries (UWEEI), UWEEI's industrial relations officers and NTUC's e2i have been working with the company to render assistance and support for its affected workers.
NTUC recognises that professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in their 40s and 50s are one of the most vulnerable groups of workers and we share their concerns too.
Thus, NTUC formed the NTUC Job Security Council (JSC) in February last year to explore upstream measures to prevent or minimise the unemployment duration of workers.
The JSC ecosystem currently has many companies on board to harvest job vacancies and aggregate jobs for job seekers.
Through this strong and extensive network, JSC is able to swiftly job-match affected workers into new roles.
Since February last year till April this year, JSC has helped more than 32,000 workers through various efforts such as matching displaced workers into new jobs or helping workers transit to secondary jobs.
In fact, since the news of the retrenchment at Panasonic, many companies have come forward to express interest to recruit the workers who would be retrenched.
NTUC's e2i stands ready to work with UWEEI to curate the jobs and match the retrenched workers to the jobs.
JSC is also focused on supporting employers and workers to constantly reskill and upskill to ensure workers, regardless of age, remain relevant and grow in tandem with company transformation plans.
Gilbert Tan
Chief Executive Officer
National Trades Union Congress' Employment and Employability Institute
