With the pool of freelancers and self-employed individuals growing in the Singapore workforce, the Labour Movement welcomed its second advisor to the U Freelancers & Self-Employed (U FSE) - Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Trade and Industry Sim Ann.
It is part of the on-going process to involve political officer holders in the work of the NTUC.
Ms Sim joins SMS (Education) Janil Puthucheary who was appointed as advisor to U FSE on 24 April 2018.
NTUC Assistant Director-General (ADG) and U FSE Director Ang Hin Kee said Ms Sim will help build on her links between businesses, Government and the freelance workforce to help freelancers expand their outreach.
Dr Janil is already helping to link up with the employment and career guidance group in the Ministry of Education on job options freelancers can pursue.
Can SMEs Tap on Freelancers?
On 30 April 2018, Ms Sim had the chance to interact with small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) bosses and freelancers at a discussion on alternate sources of talent for SMEs at the NTUC Centre.
She said the number of local residents who took up self-employed work as their primary job for at least six months in 2017 grew to 223,500, an increase of more than 10 per cent from 2016.
So how can SMEs take advantage of this available source of manpower?
“SMEs can look towards professional freelancers to quickly augment their core workforce, especially in areas where they find challenging to fill positions based on permanent employment. In addition, freelancers can potentially provide a competitive advantage to organisations such as offering niche expertise or capabilities that an organisation may not have,” said Ms Sim.
However, for this to happen, there is a need for SMEs to understand how the freelance manpower landscape works.
Her call to the SMEs - adapt your HR practices to create fruitful and sustainable relationships with professional freelancers.
NTUC Helping Freelancers
NTUC is also helping the freelance workforce in several ways.
ADG Ang said it is helping to uplift their standards and train them so that they can continually provide value-added services to their clients. They are also helping freelancers to expand their network by working closely with the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
NTUC also wants the recommendations put forth by the tripartite work group report on self-employed persons to be better understood both by the buyers of freelance services and freelancers themselves.
ADG Ang said this is so that the freelance workforce can focus their minds on growing their business.
