1. Help companies cut costs to prevent job losses

2. Retrain workers for new jobs

3. Maintain programmes such as getting more women and older people to work, as well as improving the pay and productivity of low-skilled workers

These are the top 3 priorities of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) for the difficult year ahead, according to Mr Lim Swee Say, NTUC's secretary-general.

In a new year's day email to NTUC staff and unionists, Mr Lim stressed that the labour movement will work with the government and employers to protect jobs and create growth. "We need to be even more flexible and adaptable in 2009, because more cost reduction for our businesses would mean more jobs saved," he said.

Mr Lim acknowledged that some existing jobs would be lost due to a sharp drop in global demand, but pointed out that new ones would also be created in sectors such as education, health care, construction and public transport. Openings will also be available in the upcoming integrated resorts, as well as new shopping malls and hotels.

"We need them (workers) to believe in themselves and be willing to adapt to new job demands, so that we can help them up-skill and re-skill to take on new and different jobs in different industries."

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you had as much fun counting down to the new year as we did! After all, I'm sure most of you couldn't wait to say goodbye to 2008...

Apologies for the recent lack of updates, but here's our very first entry of 2009, which contains some sobering but nevertheless important news for the year ahead.

The government has reduced its growth forecast for Singapore's economy in 2009 to between -2 and 1%, down from the previous range of between -1 and 2%.

This comes after the economy shrank by a whopping 12.5% between October and December of last year, the biggest quarterly decline since 1976!

But some economists feel that the government's revised forecast is still too optimistic, suggesting that negative growth is almost certain. For instance, CIMB-GK economist Song Seng Wun paints a worse-case scenario where the economy could shrink by 2-5%, while employment could return to the 2003 peak of 5%.

The level of unemployment will definitely be closely watched by the government, which has already unveiled a $600 million training package that aims to persuade bosses to retrain, and not retrench workers.

Analysts also expect the saving of jobs to be a top priority for the upcoming Budget, to be announced on the 22nd of this month.

If you're not in the mood for Christmas shopping because you've just lost your job, you might want to try applying for some of the 1,050 job vacancies in the Home Team (no, it's not a football club).

The Home Team (aka Home Affairs Ministry) is holding a major recruitment fair at VivoCity this weekend, to fill vacancies in the police, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), prisons, narcotics, and fire and rescue.

The bulk of available positions are for the police force, with 470 vacancies for junior police officers. The starting salary for junior officers ranges from $1,300 to $2,400, while those who snag senior positions can expect $2,500 to $3,900.

To attract applicants, new perks have been added, such as a sign-on bonus of $4,500 for senior officers (who are confirmed after a year) and a retention bonus of up to $30,000 for junior officers (who chalk up to at least 8 years of service).

While it may seem as though the Home Team is pretty eager to tackle its manpower shortage, hiring criteria will not be compromised. For instance, potential officers must meet fitness standards and be Singaporeans or Singapore Permanent Residents.

Isn't it refreshing to read of an organisation that's hiring instead of retrenching by the thousands? But then again, I do wonder how many people among those who have been retrenched lately will actually consider becoming a police officer. After all, statistics have shown that the resignation rate of police officers has increased significantly in recent years.

Which makes me wonder: what are some reasons for people leaving or not wanting to join the Home Team? What could be so bad about being a police officer in one of the world's safest countries?

> Discuss career issues on the JobsCentral Forum!

At least 40 companies have signed up for the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) scheme, since it was launched at the beginning of this month.

Most are larger companies from the manufacturing sector, who are making use of the scheme to retrain some 2,500 workers. The scheme offers training fee subsidies for companies who commit their workers to training, and also comes with an absentee payroll ranging from $6 to $6.80 an hour.

However, the absentee payroll has not been a practical incentive for companies employing skilled degree holders. Moreover, the courses currently offered under SPUR do not match the skill sets of those in the banking and finance industry, which has been affected adversely by the current economic crisis.

Workers under the SPUR scheme will receive training at existing Continuing Education and Training Centres, which will increase in number from the current 43 to 53 by the end of 2009.

> Discuss career issues on the JobsCentral Forum!

Barely two weeks ago, I blogged about a survey by Mercer Singapore, that suggested wages in Singapore increasing by 4.2% next year.

But the forecast has been deemed an unrealistic one by analysts, who mostly expect salaries to rise more modestly, stay stagnant or even shrink.

Those who are certain that wages will not grow include representatives from Standard Chartered, HR consultancy Robert Half Singapore and Michael Page International. The consensus is that wages for industries such as manufacturing and the financial services are least likely to increase.

Some like Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong have described predicting wage increases for 2009 as "treacherous", and that the focus should be on saving jobs and businesses. I personally agree with such a stand, because of how volatile the job market has been, and will continue to be for the months ahead.

Nevertheless, expect more upcoming surveys which will attempt to shed light on salary trends. For instance, the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) will release the results of a similar survey next month, while Robert Walters' salary survey will be out in February.

> Discuss salary issues on the JobsCentral Forum!

Close to 100 employees have been retrenched from Philips Singapore, a Dutch electronics company. Those affected were informed on Wednesday, and will start leaving the company by the end of the year.

Total staff strength of the company stands around 3,200, and staff were mainly retrenched from Philips' Consumer Lifestyle Division's Audio-Video and Multimedia business unit.

According to a spokeperson, the company informed its staff union before making the decision to retrench, and is currently working with an outplacement agency to help affected staff.

Over at Chartered Semiconductor, 273 contract positions have been cut in Singapore this week. The firm is also reducing salaries by 5 to 20% based on job grades for now, while plans are being made to shut down part of operations during the week of Christmas.

> Discuss career issues on the JobsCentral Forum!

While most employers are expected to decrease or freeze their headcount in early 2009, Singapore will still create more than 45,000 new jobs in the next two years.

This is according to figures compiled by Mr Ong Ye Kung, NTUC assistant secretary-general, who says that most of these jobs will require workers with skills. Major employers include the two Integrated Resorts, the health-care, retail and security sectors.

Both Integrated Resorts have 20,000 vancacies to fill, and more than 10,000 people have already applied to work at the Marina Bay Sands development.

Hiring in the health-care sector will be boosted by new hospitals like Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Jurong Hospital, while new shopping malls such as Orchard ION will create around 4,000 new jobs for sales assistants and cashiers.

The Ministry of Education will also offer around 2,200 vacancies for positions such as teachers and teaching assistants.

Despite the gloomy outlook for 2009, salaries are still expected to increase across industries in Singapore.

On average, base salaries will rise by 4.2%, according to a survey of 230 firms by human resource consultancy Mercer Singapore.

The figure is 0.9% lower than that of this year, and the smallest wage increments are expected in banking, property and electronics manufacturing. All three industries have been adversely affected by the current economic slowdown.

Here are the salary increment projections for various industries, based on the survey:

I know Christmas is just around the corner, but I don't know why my office increasingly reminds me of the North Pole.

Maybe the people who run the building think a lower temperature might help to bring about some seasonal cheer. Or perhaps the country's climate is getting affected by the hiring freeze (pun obviously intended) adopted by numerous companies .

In any case, here are 5 ways to know if your office is getting too cold:


1) You usually hear nothing much other than keyboards being typed on and printers doing their thing. But now you're starting to hear colleagues sneeze, sniff and curse.

2) You start to notice colleagues wearing more layers of clothes than before. Even the girls who usually swear by spaghetti straps have shawls wrapped around themselves.

3) You find yourself walking to the pantry to get a hot drink more often than ever. You may not realise you're doing this until you've gone to pee for the 7th time in a day.

4) You see colleagues attempting to raise the temperature of the unresponsive thermostat, only to end up rubbing their hands together to generate more warmth.

5) You decide to bring a scarf the next day, since the colleague sitting next to you looks so cosy that you can't help thinking of photocopying her scarf for yourself.