The Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI), a wage subsidy scheme launched in September last year and extended till this September with an additional allocation, provides an important structure of employment support for pandemic-hit Singaporeans now that the Jobs Support Scheme has lapsed for several sectors. The JGI has spurred many companies to hire more locals, including mature workers, across different sectors. Nearly 99 per cent of the employers were small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is welcome particularly because they account for about 99.5 per cent of enterprises here, employ more than 70 per cent of the country's workforce, and contribute about 44 per cent to gross domestic product. SMEs are an indispensable part of the Singapore economy, and their hiring behaviour has a direct impact on the everyday lives of local workers.

Eligible employers receive 25 per cent wage support for each local, non-mature hire for up to 12 months under the JGI and up to 50 per cent wage support for up to 18 months if they hire mature workers, persons with disabilities and former offenders. Given this supportive framework to encourage the employment of older workers, it is heartening that close to half of JGI-supported hires were aged above 40 and a third were above 50. The Government's efforts to promote the employment of older workers, who are vulnerable to many employers' reflexive preference for younger workers even in normal times, are commendable particularly during the contraction of job opportunities produced by the extraordinary economic costs of the coronavirus pandemic.