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Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday (March 3) during the committee of supply debates, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo outlined some of the help being extended to freelancers and Self-Employed Persons (SEP).

Teo acknowledged that the Covid-19 outbreak has impacted more than just the taxi and private hire industry, which had received a S$77 million package by the Ministry of Transport and that SEPs in other occupations have been adversely affected as well.

Despite the adversity, Teo stated that this could also be a window of opportunity for them to upgrade their skills.

The newly introduced SEP Training Support Scheme will see all SEPs paid a training allowance of S$7.50/hour to attend courses under the SkillsFuture Series, as well as selected sector-specific training programmes, over the next three months.

This will help them supplement their income while being more future-ready.

Teo gave an example of how one might use this new scheme.

"To illustrate, consider a 45-year-old freelance sports coach who, or media freelancer, who decides to brush up on business management skills by taking a series of courses covering areas such as digital marketing, and design thinking.

Together, there are six modular courses stretching over 90 hours or about 12 days.

With SSG’s enhanced 90 percent subsidy of the course fees for those aged 40 and above, this sports coach or media freelancer would only need to pay about S$400 for the course. By using his SkillsFuture Credit, he will not need to pay a single cent out of his pocket.

Furthermore, he will receive training allowance of S$675."

The government will set aside S$36 million for this purpose.

There is no cap to how much training SEPs can sign up for.

NTUC, which has established outreach channels to SEPs, will administer this scheme, and release details on how to apply soon.

Earlier on in parliament, Assistant Secretary General of NTUC, Patrick Tay, reiterated his call to use the absentee payroll to go for for skills upgrading and training, while receiving a training allowance.

Image from Getty