How Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) have fared in Singapore

In a parliament reply dated 10 July, Singapore's Minister for Manpower, Josephine Teo provided a written answer on the progress of Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP). Teo stated that more than 10,000 professional, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) have been placed into jobs through PCPs since its launch in 2007 and that completion rates for PCPs are above 90%.

Additionally, in 2017, close to 3,800 PMETs were placed through PCPs, up from about 1,300 in 2016.

The share of mature and long-term unemployed PMETs placed also rose in 2017, following the increase in training and salary support for these groups of jobseekers.

PCPs are also offered to re-skill at-risk PMETs for new job roles within the same company and avert possible retrenchments. Last year, Attach-and-Train PCPs was launched to train workers ahead of demand in sectors with long term growth potential. There are currently over 100 PCPs in about 30 sectors, which is approximately twice the number of PCPs a year ago.

PCPs help mid-career PMETs reskill and switch careers so that they can move into new occupations or sectors with good prospects for progression.

Teo said: "We will continue to raise awareness of PCPs among jobseekers and employers to support reskilling and career conversion."

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Teo also gave an answer regarding current successful job matching rate of MyCareersFuture (MCF).

She stated that more than 20,000 employers placed job postings on the Jobs Bank in 2017, of which only a minority were to fulfil the Fair Consideration Framework advertising requirements. These job postings received more than 2 million applications from local jobseekers.

However, the ministry is not yet able to capture all job matches facilitated by Jobs Bank or MCF as employers may not update the outcome of their job postings.

"We are therefore looking at ways to better assess the effectiveness of MCF in job matching, such as inferring placement rates using administrative data," Teo said.

She added that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) accounted for more than 60% of job postings on the Jobs Bank in 2017 and that they expect the proportion to be similar in MCF.

MyCareersFuture (MCF) is one measure among several under Adapt and Grow. It is an online jobs marketplace that recently replaced the national Jobs Bank to help jobseekers and employers perform smarter and faster job searches.

"We will continue to serve users who are more comfortable communicating in vernacular languages through WSG’s Careers Connect and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (NTUC’s e2i) centres.  This includes providing guidance on online job search so that they too can eventually benefit from accessing opportunities through such avenues," Teo concluded.

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