More than 40,000 jobs will be created as part of a new SGUnited Jobs & Skills Package, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced on May 26, at the Fortitude Budget speech.

The Finance Minister said that jobs will be created in both the public and private sectors.

In addition, the package will also oversee the creation of 25,000 traineeships and skills training for 30,000 job seekers.

15,000 will be created in the public sector, 25,000 will be created for private sector

In giving the breakdown of job creation for the two sectors, Heng stated that the public sector will create 15,000 jobs.

This will come from a combination of both long-term needs, such as bringing forward hiring for healthcare, long-term care and childhood education, and short-term needs related to Covid-19 operations, such as healthcare declaration assistants and swabbers.

As for the private sector, Heng stated that government agencies will work with businesses to create 25,000 jobs.

Here, Heng highlighted that several businesses had stepped forward, with openings in various job roles, such as computer engineers, and machine operators.

Heng then elaborated that the government will expand capacity in career conversion programmes, such as in Place-and-Train conversion programmes under the Adapt and Grow Initiative, and company-led training programmes under the TechSkills Accelerator or TeSA initiative.

21,000 traineeships to come from the SGUnited Traineeships programme

As for the traineeships, Heng stated that 21,000 of the traineeships will come from the SGUnited Traineeships programme, while the remaining 4,000 places will come from a new SGUnited Mid-Career Traineeships scheme.

The programme is targetted at local first-time job seekers, where Workforce Singapore funds the training allowances with host companies, for up to 12 months.

Heng added that the SGUnited Traineeships programme will be progressively offered starting from June 1.

SgUnited Skills programme for 30,000 job seekers

Heng also announced a new SGUnited Skills programme to expand the training capacity for about 30,000 job seekers this year.

Participants of this programme will take industry-relevant and certifiable training courses full-time, at highly subsidised rates.

They will also receive a training allowance of $1,200 per month.

Top image screenshot via gov.sg