Dedicated F&B job portal launched to attract more Singaporeans to food services sector

SINGAPORE – A job portal dedicated to the food and beverage (F&B) industry has been launched, aimed at attracting more Singaporeans to the food services sector, among other objectives.

On FABjobs (fabjobs.sg), job seekers looking for full-time or part-time roles are able to filter their preferences according to parameters such as location, position, those with no experience required, students, or jobs available only for Singaporeans.

It was launched on June 26 at the fifth edition of trade show Restaurant Asia by the Restaurant Association of Singapore (RAS) and FastCo, the company behind job portal FastJobs.

Currently, there are more than 1,000 job listings on FABjobs.

According to RAS, the F&B industry in Singapore has 4,900 job vacancies.

The portal allows F&B companies to “customise and highlight unique employee value propositions, to more intelligently recruit and perhaps retrain the right candidates”, RAS president Andrew Kwan said at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

Job applicants can also see offered salaries upfront on the portal.

While developing the portal in the past year, RAS vice-president Benjamin Boh said the association and its members – which represent 70 per cent of Singapore’s F&B industry – shared pain points with the team from FastCo. These included the need for listings to be upfront about salaries.

“People keep saying F&B (pay is) very low, but when you look through all the salary bands, we are actually quite competitive with other front-line industries,” said Mr Boh, speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of the event.

“This (being upfront about salary on listings) also helps us with benchmarking and competing within the pool, because we can see what people are paying... As an employer, we don’t want to be going into a price war,” added Mr Boh, who is also the managing director of McDonald’s Singapore.

Speaking at the launch of FABjobs, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling noted that the job market is already well served by several job portals. But there was a need for a portal that caters to the services industry, which has a combination of full-time, part-time and contract roles.

She added that FABjobs is also designed to attract greater workforce participation from latent job seekers, such as stay-at-home mothers, with the aim of reducing the barriers such job seekers face in rejoining the workforce.

Challenging to hire Singaporeans for food services jobs

Zoul’s Corner, which has five outlets islandwide and is best known for its ayam penyet, is a smaller F&B player that is optimistic about finding new staff via the portal in the future.

While Zoul’s Corner has not put up any job listings on FABjobs yet, its senior operations manager Rahman Sharil said: “Maybe with this new portal, we will have more chances to filter and hire people.”

Being unable to hire staff has meant that it has had to delay openings of more outlets, after recently opening its fifth outlet in Hougang.

“It’s very difficult to get Singaporeans... There are plenty of Malaysians willing to do the work, but because of quotas, we have to hire Singaporeans,” said Mr Rahman, who has listed available jobs in Malay daily Berita Harian and even on his own Facebook page.

The current foreign worker quota for F&B businesses in Singapore is a maximum of 35 per cent of the total workforce.

Mr Rahman noted that Singaporeans are after higher salaries and shorter work hours, and do not want to work on weekends, among other requirements.

Image overhaul for food services industry

Mr Boh said the launch of FABjobs will also be accompanied by a campaign centred around an image overhaul for the food services industry, which will likely kick off in the third quarter of 2024 and last for around 18 months.

“We’re looking at how we can use marketing and branding to rebrand the industry and showcase it in a very different light,” said Mr Boh, citing shows such as critically acclaimed American series The Bear, which revolves around a fine-dining chef who takes over his brother’s sandwich shop.

“The whole idea is how we showcase these real stories... that F&B is more than just mundane jobs, or standing for 12 hours,” he added.

The launch of the job portal also comes on the back of several developments to boost and bolster workers in the industry, including a recently launched internship playbook.

Developed by Enterprise Singapore in collaboration with various institutes of higher learning, the step-by-step guide is meant to help food services companies identify their areas of focus and to structure internships.

A

Jobs Transformation Map

for the food services sector was also launched in May 2023.

Restaurant Asia 2024 is co-organised with the first edition of Sigep Asia, the new satellite trade show of Italy’s Sigep World in Rimini.

The show, by major European exhibition organiser Italian Exhibition Group, is dedicated to the gelato, pastry, pizza and coffee industries.

The three-day event from June 26 to 28 is hosting more than 300 exhibitors from 30 countries. It expects to receive over 10,000 visitors.