By Nur Dianah Suhaimi

When freelance Internet marketer Dipankar Subba tried looking for a part-time job last month, he never expected it to be such a tedious process.

He had trawled through various job portals but they mainly listed full-time or contract jobs.

Exasperated, the 37-year-old decided to set up his own job portal which lists only part-time positions.

'There must be so many part-time jobs out there. But looking for them is not easy when you have to go through so many job sites,' said Mr Dipankar, who is from India and is now a permanent resident here.

He completed the website - www.singaporeparttimejobs.com - within one day and launched it two weeks ago. Since then, the site has listed more than 200 part-time and temporary openings.

Companies which came to know of the portal through the Internet would contact him to list the vacancies and Mr Dipankar also puts up those he comes across himself.

The positions range from distributors of fliers to international school discipline masters.

There are also vacancies in reputable companies such as page designers at Singapore Press Holdings, senior marketing manager at Keppel Land and an administrative position at Far East Organization.

Vacancies are classified according to industry, from food & beverage and tourism to retail and sales to information technology and health care.

Each posting has a brief explanation of what the job entails as well as details on how to contact the company.

Mr Dipankar also indicates the date the job is listed so that applicants can tell how recent the listing is. He gets about 25 requests a day from employers to list vacancies and does not charge a fee.

However, not all these openings are part-time.

'I usually sift through the job requirements to make sure that the job is a part-time or temporary one,' he said.

He also lists any part-time vacancies that he spots at shopping malls. These are usually found in shops looking for part-time sales assistants or eateries looking for waitresses.

Mr Dipankar spends about half an hour a day updating and servicing the site. He sees it as a form of service to job-seekers, and said he does not plan to make money from it.

The former IT director quit his job in 2007 so that he could work on freelance Internet marketing projects from home. He also wanted to spend more time with his wife.

But the recession led to a slowdown in the number of projects he got.

Worried about not having a stable income, he decided to look for a part-time job, one which would allow him to work in a bookstore or a library because he loves books.

He searched online for weeks but found it troublesome clicking from one site to another.

That was when he thought of setting up his own job portal.

One shortcoming is that he has no way of knowing which jobs have already been filled.

It is also not known how long he can continue providing this free service because it all depends on how much spare time he has.

Said Mr Dipankar: 'For now, I will just let this portal grow organically. I don't think I will be making any major changes soon.'

As for the part-time job he has been looking for, he has decided he might not need one after all.

He said: 'I've been getting more projects these days so that should keep me busy.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.