By Fawwaz Baktee
As part of their celebrations for the International Women’s Day, NTUC Women’s Development Secretariat (WDS) organised its first large scale job fair for the year targetted to help mature women gain employment.
Held at Downtown East’s D’Marquee on 8 March 2015, the job fair featured 17 employers from sectors such as food and beverage, education, healthcare, hospitality, retail and security offering more than 2,800 job vacancies.
According to WDS, insufficient savings is one of the many challenges that older and less skilled women face, making it important to provide more opportunities for this group to be financially independent and plan ahead for retirement and their medical needs.
Healthway Medical Group Pte Ltd was one employer that offered positions for mature workers.
“We want to encourage more mature workers back into the workforce. Working together with young workers, they are able to share their experiences and ideas among one another and bring more vibrancy to the company,” said Healthway Medical Group Deputy Medical Director Dr Philip Koh.
Flexible Work Hours
Many employers at the job fair also offered job seekers some form of Flexible Work Arrangement (FWA).
NTUC President Diana Chia said: “Companies who offer flexible work arrangement can manage manpower better. To be a progressive company, we have to look at how a worker’s time can be managed in such a way that work and family can be incorporated together.
“These two cannot be separated. We need to have a more creative way of making jobs flexible… A worker who is worried about family cannot give his or her best at work. A company who wants the best from their workers must give their best to their workers.”
Devan Nair e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) has also been working closely with WDS to help increase women’s workforce participation. e2i said it will continue to give better career coaching, place-and-train programmes and continue to conduct regular job fairs offering FWA targetted at women.
SkillsFuture for Women
According to NTUC WDS Director Sylvia Choo, many women have given feedback that they welcome the SkillsFuture Credit announced at Budget 2015.
“The initiative could be to the advantage of many women who have been out of the workforce and who would need to upgrade themselves periodically to increase their chances for employment. WDS will continue to support them in this area,” said Ms Lim.
Best Companies for Mums 2015
The International Women’s day celebrations also saw WDS announcing the SG50 Special Award category in its annual Best Companies for Working Mum Contest 2015. The new award will give recognition to companies with dedicated FWA and employee support schemes that are specific and relevant to women.
Appreciating Her
In the main event, around 64 women from 50 vocations were celebrated for contributing and excelling at their workplaces.
Sixty-eight-year old chambermaid Alijah Binjang said: “I feel very happy to be honoured for my contributions. Although I’m past my retirement age, I feel that I’m still able to contribute to the workforce.”
Source: NTUC This Week
