The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has corrected a figure cited by the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) representative in a televised live debate on Wednesday.
Mr Francis Yuen had said during the programme, Singapore Votes 2020 - The Political Debate, that Singapore has 100,000 local professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who are jobless.
This is incorrect, MOM said.
As of June last year, there are 39,000 local unemployed PMETs, it pointed out, fewer than half of the 100,000 cited by Mr Yuen.
It added that the 39,000 figure is from the Report on Labour Force in Singapore 2019, released on Jan 30 this year. This year's figures will be released in the report early next year, as the survey is conducted annually, it said.
But Mr Yuen, 70, who is leading PSP's four-member team in Chua Chu Kang GRC against People's Action Party (PAP) rivals led by Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, said the MOM's figures are outdated.
"The June 2019 figures do not include retrenchments in the third and fourth quarter of last year and the expected numbers in 2020, he said in response to queries from The Straits Times.
"MOM in the same report also said that 70 per cent of retrenchments in 2019 are (that of) PMETs. Given job losses in 2020 are expected to be 100,000 to 200,000, and estimating that 70 per cent of these will be (those of) PMETs, we estimate 100,000 unemployed PMETs," added Mr Yuen, who was industrial conglomerate Hong Leong Asia's chief executive and a former Republic of Singapore Air Force colonel.
He said that in citing the 100,000 figure, the party also took into consideration the "large proportion who will not find jobs" among the more than 30,000 new graduates entering the job market this year, as well as PMETs displaced into the gig economy who are unaccounted for in unemployment figures.
During the debate, its moderator had asked how the PSP will deal with rising unemployment.
Mr Yuen replied: "We have a lot of foreign PMETs working here. I think there are about 400,000 of them, and yet we have about more than 100,000 of these PMETs who are out of a job.
"We believe that we need foreign PMETs to complement but we need to believe that there is opportunity for us to slow it down."
He later cited the figure again in response to Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan's question: "What else do you want (the People's Action Party) to do... as far as PMETs are concerned?"
Dr Balakrishnan, representing the PAP, said the number of local PMETs is increasing by 3 per cent a year, higher than the overall local workforce's growth rate, and that there are seven locals holding a PMET job for every foreign Employment Pass holder.
"And are you aware that in the first five months of this year, 60,000 foreigners have lost jobs?" he added.
Mr Yuen replied: "I mean the fact still remains that you have amongst us over 400,000 foreign PMETs... the fact also remains that we have a number of our own PMETs that are out of a job to the tune of 100,000.
"So logic will tell us that our own PMETs certainly could fill up some of the jobs" that the foreign PMETs are doing, he said.
