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Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat delivered his Supplementary Budget speech today, 26 March 2020, in Parliament. The “Resilience Budget” introduced measures to protect jobs, support companies, and strengthen resilience to help Singapore overcome the Covid-19 crisis.
We spoke with several Labour Members of Parliament after the speech to get their reactions to the Ministerial Statement.
Our workers and businesses are important to us.
The $55 billion total Budget, comprising today's $48 billion Resilience Budget and the earlier announced $6.4 billion Unity Budget, is a strong signal that we will stand by our workers and businesses in these challenging times. How?
$16.4 billion to save our workers’ jobs, support them and protect livelihoods.
$21 billion to help our enterprises overcome challenges. Ultimately, when our businesses do well, our workers can succeed.
$4.6 billion to help our Singaporean families with their household expenses and bills.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said, these are extraordinary measures for an extraordinary situation. I fully agree with him. These are shaped from feedback given by ordinary Singaporeans; from taxi drivers, union leaders, to workers in sectors such as aviation, tourism, land transport among others.
When I asked my union leaders on their thoughts, one shared that “Government’s care… is nothing like I’ve seen before.” Another one shared, “I am so proud to be Singaporean.”
Indeed, in times of crises like these, all of us must play our part and steel ourselves with a toughness of mind and spirit. If we do, rest assured that the Government will spare no effort to ensure that we pull through this storm together, as one.
Together, we can, and we will.
The Resilience Package is a lifeline to many workers and companies at real risk of job loss and going belly up. This includes help for the self-employed. Let us rally together in the spirit of this effort, cut costs to save jobs in this nightmare, and sharpen our capabilities and be ready for the eventual sunrise!
An extraordinary Resilience Budget to help our Singaporean workers, businesses and families.
In the past few months, many workers and businesses have felt the impact of Covid-19. Some businesses have had to shutter, some are barely surviving. Naturally, our workers, too, are not spared. Some have had to grapple with income loss, while others have lost their jobs.
These are everyday matters, everyday lives and everyday livelihoods that matter. I’m heartened that the government's Resilience Budget, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat will provide targeted and speedier relief to our workers and businesses.
Let's stay united, stay focused and stay as one people. As always, NTUC Singapore stands ready to be by the side of our workers and businesses.
The supplementary $48 billion Resilience Budget for additional relief measures for businesses and workers will provide the much-needed help to companies and workers experiencing the immediate impact of coronavirus without the certainty of knowing how long this crisis will last.
The self-employed and low-wage workers in affected industries are especially vulnerable as they may have a massive sudden drop in income and without much savings to tide them over. Hence, I strongly believe that the key to the success of these measures will be the speed at which the Government can put money quickly in the pockets of targeted workers in need of some financial relief; and at the same time, incentivising them to go for training or skills upgrading during this slow down.
This budget also provides targeted and timely financial assistance to companies most in need to support their liquidity requirements so that hard-hit firms will not lay-off workers or go out of business.
The Labour Movement will continue to support the government with the ground sensing to ensure policies can be fine-tuned to provide timely and effective assistance to affected companies and workers in terms of financial assistance and training of workers so that the workers can be ready during the upturn.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a big shock to our economy and I am glad to hear that the government is dedicating close to $55 billion to help save jobs, support workers, and protect livelihoods in this fiscal year.
I am also supportive of the many schemes to support workers in badly hit sectors, such as manufacturing, land transport, aviation, and tourism.
In my Budget Debate speech in February 2020, I called for the earlier disbursement of the SkillsFuture Credit top-ups, to turn Covid-19 into an opportunity to help our most vulnerable groups of workers emerge stronger than before. I am therefore heartened to hear that
SkillsFuture SG has worked with Institutes of Higher Learning and continuing education and training centres, to allow Singaporeans to make early use of the SkillsFuture Credit top-up for their courses from 1 April 2020, ahead of the full implementation date in October.
As Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat noted, the livelihoods of self-employed persons (SEPs) have also been badly affected as they have less income security. Many SEPs work in diverse industries and are hard to reach through traditional means.
Therefore, I will enhance the new Mobile UPME Centre to help outreach to freelance workers and SEPs, many of whom are PMETs. In addition to providing career support, the Mobile UPME Centre that will be set up at Pek Kio, Tanglin, and Cairnhill CCs can be used as an additional outreach channel to SEPs and help link them up with the available jobs in the market.
NTUC U Associate will also engage our professional associations to outreach to the SEPs within their professions.
The Labour Movement is here to help support the Government’s push to save jobs and protect the livelihoods of our workforce. I urge everyone to sign up as a NTUC member so that together, we can emerge stronger from this storm.
“Extraordinary measures for an extraordinary situation.”
Indeed, our country is faced with unprecedented challenges brought on by the Covid-19 situation, but hearing the aptly named Resilience Budget being announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat today at Parliament, I have every confidence that with the concerted efforts from the government, Labour Movement, our tripartite partners, and all fellow Singaporeans, we can prevail, come what may.
Amid the outbreak, one of the key concerns that workers have is keeping their jobs or finding jobs. The Unity Budget announced in February 2020 introduced good and solid measures to address such concerns, but some may fall through the gaps.
This is why in my Budget Debate speech in February, I called for more support for self-employed persons (SEPs) and our youths. Very glad to see that the Resilience Budget will provide targeted help for SEPs and young jobseekers through initiatives such as the SEP Income Relief Scheme and SGUnited Traineeship Programme.
Rest assured that NTUC Singapore will continue to reflect our workers’ concerns and sentiments, and to work with the government to support our workers, save jobs, and protect livelihoods.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, thus we had to draw on our Nation’s reserves to fund the Resilience Budget.
The most important announcement for me was the help given to businesses via wage subsidies and in other areas of operational cost. These will go a long way to help companies to save jobs and reduce the impact to workers’ wages, which has been the biggest worry our members had.
A thunderstorm and not a drizzle was how DPM Heng described the current crisis we are facing. These are unprecedented times and challenges are complex and likely to last for sometime, and so we are dipping into our reserves to fund this $48 billion Resilience Package. It is a very comprehensive package for individuals, families, businesses and all.
We can ride through this together.
