02 Jan 2004
New Partnership to capture 3500 Vacancies in Electronics Sector for Singaporeans
The United Workers of Electronic and Electrical Industries (UWEEI), Singapore’s largest electronics sector union, is partnering the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and NTUC JobLink to help unemployed Singaporeans take up employment in the electronics sector.
Immediate Jobs, Growing Vacancies
The WDA has sourced for some 1,000 vacancies in the electronics sector that unemployed Singaporeans could take up. And with the economic pick-up gathering pace, the WDA sees a total of some 2,500 new jobs coming on-stream over the next 6 months, especially in semiconductors and data storage. Production operators and technicians are needed.
UWEEI’s Executive Secretary Heng Chee How said, “The economy is expected to do better in 2004. This means that more jobs will come on-stream. I want to make sure that as many unemployed Singaporeans as possible get to board this ship of opportunity before it sails off. If they miss this chance, it will be very hard to get on again. So we are pulling out all stops to help make this happen while the opportunity presents itself. This partnership between UWEEI, WDA and JobLink is very timely and important.”
UWEEI, WDA and JobLink are contacting companies in the sector that need workers, and will use a variety of ways to quickly recruit unemployed Singaporeans to fill the vacancies in the electronics sector. For instance, a number of Job Preparation Exercises (JPEs) have been organised to prepare unemployed Singaporeans for these jobs. At the JPEs, unemployed Singaporeans are tested for colour blindness, and given preparation for the literacy and numeracy tests that they will face during interviews at electronics companies. The job seekers can also try on the clean room suit and be briefed about the jobs at these JPEs.
Leo Yip, Chief Executive of WDA said, "In the past 3 months, we have seen more unemployed Singaporeans coming forward to attempt jobs in the electronics sector. This is a good sign as some of these jobs used to be shunned mainly because of shift work. This shows that unemployed Singaporeans are now more realistic and more prepared to consider jobs that are available. The efforts of WDA and our partners to better prepare job seekers for such jobs has been helpful. The electronics upturn will bring about more new job opportunities. We will step up our outreach and preparation efforts to ensure that more unemployed Singaporeans can benefit from these new opportunities."
UWEEI, WDA and NTUC will step up efforts to outreach to more unemployed Singaporeans in the next few months and more JPEs will be held in the months ahead to help more unemployed Singaporeans benefit from the upturn in the sector. WDA, NTUC and UWEEI are also helping unemployed Singaporeans re-skill for these jobs through Place and Train programmes.
Interested applicants should contact NTUC Joblink at 6837-8003 or WDA Job Assistance Helpline at 6883-5885.
