I found your question interesting so I went to read up about what South Korea (SK) is doing in response to the poor job market and how it might differ from Singapore (SG)’s efforts.
Some things to take note of:
It seems like both SK and SG experience similar trends in their sectors
For SK:
Sectors that were hit: Retail, lodging, restaurant, manufacturing, construction
Sectors that saw growth: Public service, individual enterprises, agriculture
For SG:
Sectors that were hit: tourism, aviation, restaurant, construction
Sectors that saw growth: e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, ICT
According to a Bloomberg article, there’s been improvement in consumer and business confidence, and export numbers are going up (albeit still considerably and expectedly low) for SK. As part of a New Deal project, the SK government said it would commit about 114 trillion won (about 131 billion SGD) to aid economic momentum in the next 5 years. In addition, 1.9 million new jobs, focusing on areas like technology, AI, green energy, digitisation, and the likes were promised by the government. Some examples of this effort include transforming the nation’s fossil fuel-reliant economy into an eco-friendly one, training 100,000 people in AI, building nationwide 5G networks.
I noticed similar efforts that the SG and SK government are following. Generally, both governments hope to help businesses retain workers, and upskill job-seekers to prepare them for careers of longevity.
For SG, Workforce Singapore is enhancing their reskilling programs to help current employees through enhancements ranging from extending the salary support period to making them available to more employees. With the SGUnited Traineeship program, SG hopes to offer job-seekers lower paid opportunities for them to gain experience and potentially move up to long term positions. The budget by the SG govt states that “SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package will create close to 100,000 opportunities, which includes the jobs, as well as 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 skills training placements.” The traineeships also focus on technology-related areas that are growing rapidly.
Overall, I think SG and SK are doing a decent job at curbing the issue of unemployment given the circumstances. Also, it’s worth noting that headline news shouldn’t always be taken at face value. An economics professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University mentioned that “Government incentives to prevent layoffs are what’s essentially holding together the jobs market (but) businesses may start letting more employees go should the economy slow further.”
I found your question interesting so I went to read up about what South Korea (SK) is doing in response to the poor job market and how it might differ from Singapore (SG)’s efforts.
Some things to take note of:
SG usually sees higher unemployment rate in June (even pre-covid) as compared to other months due to hiring cycles and the entrance of fresh graduates plus students looking for vacation jobs
In SK, fresh graduates enter the job market around February following graduation period
High employment growth =/= Decrease in unemployment (Because a decrease in unemployment could be due to less people looking for a job in the event that they choose to pursue traineeship/ education instead)
It seems like both SK and SG experience similar trends in their sectors
For SK:
Sectors that were hit: Retail, lodging, restaurant, manufacturing, construction
Sectors that saw growth: Public service, individual enterprises, agriculture
For SG:
Sectors that were hit: tourism, aviation, restaurant, construction
Sectors that saw growth: e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, ICT
According to a Bloomberg article, there’s been improvement in consumer and business confidence, and export numbers are going up (albeit still considerably and expectedly low) for SK. As part of a New Deal project, the SK government said it would commit about 114 trillion won (about 131 billion SGD) to aid economic momentum in the next 5 years. In addition, 1.9 million new jobs, focusing on areas like technology, AI, green energy, digitisation, and the likes were promised by the government. Some examples of this effort include transforming the nation’s fossil fuel-reliant economy into an eco-friendly one, training 100,000 people in AI, building nationwide 5G networks.
I noticed similar efforts that the SG and SK government are following. Generally, both governments hope to help businesses retain workers, and upskill job-seekers to prepare them for careers of longevity.
For SG, Workforce Singapore is enhancing their reskilling programs to help current employees through enhancements ranging from extending the salary support period to making them available to more employees. With the SGUnited Traineeship program, SG hopes to offer job-seekers lower paid opportunities for them to gain experience and potentially move up to long term positions. The budget by the SG govt states that “SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package will create close to 100,000 opportunities, which includes the jobs, as well as 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 skills training placements.” The traineeships also focus on technology-related areas that are growing rapidly.
Overall, I think SG and SK are doing a decent job at curbing the issue of unemployment given the circumstances. Also, it’s worth noting that headline news shouldn’t always be taken at face value. An economics professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University mentioned that “Government incentives to prevent layoffs are what’s essentially holding together the jobs market (but) businesses may start letting more employees go should the economy slow further.”