The labour movement, citing figures from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), said that there were a total of 7,710 workers who were laid off in the first three quarters of last year, with 2,212 of them being unionised workers.
NTUC explained that the large number was due to more workers being laid off from the services sector.
NTUC also noted that the proportion of unionised workers laid off was only 27% which was lower than the number of unionised workers laid off in 2013.
Most of the unionised laid off workers were from the manufacturing sector.
The labour movement noted that the retrenchments were due to high cost, poor business and ongoing restructuring.
About 8 countries left Singapore for good for cheaper manufacturing countries last year.
Turning to future predictions, NTUC explained that they expect about 300 workers to be retrenched in the first three months of this year.
They also suggested that their labour movement was good as it helped unionised workers increase their wages by about 4.1% last year, however they did note that this was less than the 4.63% in 2013.
They said that they have increased the salaries of low wage workers by getting about 60% of their unionised workers earning $1000 and below a $60 pay rise.
However, the union, which is supposed to fight for workers’ rights failed to get the other 40% of companies to increase their low wage workers’ pay and let them off as they said that they had poor business.
Do you think the labour movement is doing a good job when it could only get 60% of companies to give their workers at least a $60 raise?