PMETs worst hit by lay-offs, lack skills for new jobs: MAS

PMETs worst hit by lay-offs, lack skills for new jobs: MAS

Laid-off workers are struggling to find work as they no longer have the skills employers want.

This skills gulf highlighted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) yesterday means good jobs are going begging in some industries while other sectors are seeing jobs disappear by the month.

The hardest hit class of workers are PMETs - professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), noted MAS in its bi-annual Macroeconomic Review published yesterday.

People are also clinging on to their jobs, with seasonally-adjusted resignation rates at their lowest in more than seven years.

The economy is on track to log its slowest year of growth since 2009 when the global financial crisis was in full swing.

The skills gulf can be felt in the labour market with redundancies picking up.

There were 2.4 layoffs per 1,000 workers in the first six months of this year, from 2.1 in the preceding six-month period and well up on the 1.7 in the same period the year before, the MAS report said.

Resident workers who have been laid off have also found it harder to find new jobs.

PMETs accounted for more than two-thirds of the residents let go in the first half of this year - more than their share of the total workforce.

While more than half of the job openings in the same period were aimed at PMETs, only 39.6 per cent of laid-off resident PMET workers scored a post within six months.

The solution in part lies with the workers themselves, said the MAS report. "(They) should equip themselves with the necessary skills to fill the jobs that are currently available and will be in demand in the coming years," it noted.

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chiaym@sph.com.sg


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