by Augustine Low
Singaporeans do not need to worry about not having a job because the country will not run out of jobs.
According to Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, there are 3.5 million jobs for 2.5 million working adult Singaporeans.
The Minister was speaking at the Singapore Summit on Thursday, a forum on global trends. The forum was supported by Economic Development Board, Monetary Authority of Singapore, sovereign wealth fund GIC and state investor Temasek.
Minister Chan emphasized that the government’s focus is to keep workers at the “forefront of technology to seize new opportunities, looking for tomorrow’s jobs rather than just hoping that yesterday’s jobs will come back once again.”
He spoke of a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, in that “people have seen the reliability of the Singapore system, and because of that, more investments are attracted to base out of Singapore to continue to serve the global markets, even in the midst of a pandemic and other crisis that may happen in the future.”
The mind-boggling takeaway is the Minister’s claim of 3.5 million jobs for 2.5 million Singaporeans.
It was not the first time that Minister Chan came up with the astounding figure of 3.5 million jobs.
In July last year, in an interview with Asia First on CNA938, he said there would always be more jobs than the number of working adult Singaporeans. And yes, he mentioned the availability of 3.5 million jobs!
Where did he pluck his 3.5 million figure from? He has not explained.
Singaporeans have been told that the country’s unemployment rate has climbed to its highest in a decade. Retrenchments are commonplace and we have been warned to brace ourselves for more job losses in the months ahead.
Yet there are an amazing 3.5 million jobs available for 2.5 million working adult Singaporeans?