EVERY day, Mr Ong Ah Hwee literally ploughs into a job that he loves.

As a landscaping technician, the 59-year-old spends eight hours a day keeping the East Coast Park in pictureperfect condition, trimming and fertilising plants and trees and making minor repairs to sidewalks.

'I've always been interested in horticulture and gardening, but never got a chance to learn,' Mr Ong said in Mandarin. 'Now, I can work and have fun at the same time.'

The opportunity came knocking in 2006, ironically after he was retrenched from his job as a tobacco salesman.

Armed with a desire to be financially independent, the father of two grown-up children approached the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which in turn worked with the National Parks Board (NParks) to train him for the landscaping job.

He currently draws a monthly wage of $1,000, and can get up to $300 more a month when he completes a seven-month landscaping design course. Mr Ong is among the 2,400 landscaping technicians who went for retraining under the Job Re-creation Programme, which redesigns jobs to boost the pay and employment prospects of displaced - and often older - Singaporeans.

The programme aims to re-skill 4,000 workers for jobs in the sector this year.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 2, 2008.