Ellen Joy Anastacio and Chew Hui Min

The government will be spending $4.5 billion on a Jobs Credit scheme to provide companies with cash grants to retain workers.

The Jobs Credit scheme will provide a cash grant for employers consisting 12% of the first $2,500 of each employee on CPF payroll.

This means that for a worker whose wage is $2,500, an employer will get $900 a quarter, or $300 a month.

The grant will be given in four quarterly payments, with the first payment at the end of March this year. The next three payments will be in June, September and December 2009.

The cash incentive is pegged at the median wage in Singapore, and is designed encourage companies to retain low and middle-income workers.

He explained that the government decided against cutting the employer CPF contribution rate because the "fundamental problem in the recession is not that of wage competitiveness but that of a slump in global demand".

Special Workfare payment

The government will also be giving $150 million to help lower income workers through a special Workfare Income Supplement Scheme (WIS) payment.

They will receive an additional 50% on top of existing WIS payments.

For example, someone aged 50 years old, taking home a $1,000 a month will get $1,200 dollars a year under the existing Workfare scheme.

Under the special WIS scheme, he will now get another $600 dollars, bringing the total to $1,800.

The eligibility criteria will also be relaxed to allow those who do not have regular income to qualify. Previously, they had to work continuously for six months to qualify.

Expansion of re-training schemes

To retain long-term competitiveness, the government will be enhancing the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) to help re-train Singapore workers.

The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) has recently expanded the number of courses covered under SPUR by five times. These include courses in human resource, healthcare, precision engineering, and ICT.

WDA will also double the number of Professional Conversion Programmes to help professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs).

18,000 public sector jobs

In addition, the civil service will be taking this opportunity to attract talent. The finance minister announced that 18,000 public sector jobs to be made available in next 2 years.

This includes government-supported jobs in areas such as childcare, tertiary education, and restructured hospitals.