Jobsbank can’t tell how many jobs went to Singaporeans?

We refer to the article “Feedback on Jobs Bank has been positive: Tan Chuan-Jin” (Today, Sep 9).

It states that “More than 31,000 Singaporeans have signed up with the Jobs Bank and more than 10,000 employers have joined and are actively posting job vacancies, to date.

And over 65,000 jobs are available on the Jobs Bank, a more than 400 per cent increase from the portal’s official launch on July 14.Feedback from both job seekers and employers, since the launch, has been positive. “It’s an encouraging start,”

Can’t tell how many jobs went to Singaporeans?

However, Mr Tan noted that actual figures and accurate or representative indicators of how well Singaporeans are doing in the labour market are difficult to determine due to multiple avenues of employment.

Singaporean job seekers may be hired directly by firms, through head-hunters or private job portals and other job advertisements. Even application for jobs that Singaporeans see on the Jobs Bank cannot be tracked directly as they apply through in-house human resource (HR) portals.”

- Don’t you find it somewhat strange that after spending so much time, money and resources, and all the fanfare – we end up with a system that cannot measure at all how many of the jobs posted went to Singaporeans?

Why can’t employers be asked to indicate as to whether the jobs posted went to Singaporeans, PRs or foreigners?

As to “The Ministry of Manpower has been tracking and reporting indicators of citizen employment outcomes regularly, with seasonally adjusted citizen unemployment rate estimated at 3 per cent, as of June. Singaporean workers have also enjoyed positive real wage growth over the past five years. “The situation is healthy,” said Mr Tan.”

“Citizen employment outcomes”?

- We believe there is no breakdown into Singaporeans and PRs for the workforce, employment change,  long-term unemployed,  etc.

Negative real total wage change?

Also, according to the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) web site, the real annual total wage change (excluding employer CPF) from 2008 to 2012, was -2.4, -1.0, 2.7, 0.1 and -0.8, respectively.

This works out to a cumulative real decrease in wage change of about -1.5% or -0.29 per annum, from 2008 to 2012 – A negative real total wage change for the last 5 years.

Real income growth?

Real median income change from 2008 to 2013 was only about 1.0 per cent per annum

… for the 20th percentile – the real change per annum for the last 10 years was only about 0.3 per cent