In the landscape of meritocracy, most recruiters would believe that the best job is reserved for the best man. However, getting the perfect fit may not be the best fix for companies as recent surveys show that few millennials expect to spend their lives with one single employer.
Employers who themselves could have spent a long tenure at a single company should begin to look at providing career development and meaningful work for their staff.
Singapore’s Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say feels the quality of jobs is as important as the quantity of jobs created.
“Don’t keep looking for so-called plug-and-play kind of workers. Don’t keep looking for workers who can fit into your job 100 per cent,” he said at a recent job fair in Singapore.
Organised by Workforce Singapore and the Employability Institute, the one-day job fair saw more than 20 employers offering some 260 jobs.
According to Lim, “organizing a job fair with 10,000 jobs won’t solve the problem” for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who have been out of work for at least six months.
Singapore’s resident unemployment rate remained relatively low at 3% in 2016, despite a slight increase from 2.8% in 2015.
However, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) recorded 19,170 redundancies in 2016, reflecting an upward trend in redundancies and a decline in job vacancies. It noted that “residents were proportionally less affected, with their share of redundancies (58%) remaining lower than their share of employment (66%)”.
Statistics by MOM revealed that the PMETS accounted for 72% of local redundancies. Re-entry rates were low with slightly less than half of these residents (48%) made redundant in 2016 re-entering the workforce. The lowest re-entry rate was reported among those aged 50 & over (40%), degree holders (42%) and PMETs (44%).
Lim indicated that plans would be made for the unemployed PMETS to get more targeted help through smaller job fairs. This, he felt, would help keep the long-term unemployment rate in check.
“Moving forward, the quality of jobs is a factor that is going to determine whether we are able to overcome this potential stickiness in our unemployment rate,” he added.
Source
http://www.hrdmag.com.sg/news/stop-looking-for-plugandplay-workers-manpower-minister-tells-employers-234348.aspx
