SINGAPORE - More than 450 jobs in retail, healthcare, education and logistics were offered by five companies at the North West SkillsFuture Marketplace held at Yew Tee Community Centre on Saturday (Oct 24).

The positions, which are offered by Cold Storage Singapore, E-Bridge Pre-school, Gain City, Methodist Welfare Services and Sankyu Singapore, are for retail assistants, security officers, department managers and pre-school teachers.

Organised by the North West Community Development Council (CDC), the job fair was the first of four to be held monthly over four months across the district, reaching out to about 600 residents.

Residents can look forward to on-site job interviews with prospective employers and seek career guidance from the National Trade Union Congress' Employment and Employability Institute (e2i).

There will also be virtual workshops and events to guide job seekers on topics such as resume writing and SkillsFuture courses.

Speaking at Saturday's fair, held in Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, Education Minister and Second Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong said he hopes the Covid-19 pandemic will spur more Singaporeans to pick up new skills.

Mr Wong, who is also MP for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, said: "2020 will be a year that we remember as a year of Covid-19, a year of tremendous difficulties for the world and for Singapore, but if there is a silver lining through this crisis, it is that it has also motivated many of us to move out of our comfort zones... to upgrade ourselves.

"So while the immediate focus is on jobs, let's think harder about how we can continue this momentum to make SkillsFuture a national movement and a national habit for Singaporeans."

North West District Mayor Alex Yam, who was at the fair, said: "What we found with some of the jobseekers is that they prefer to look at jobs that are closer to home, which is why we tried to curate as much as possible, jobs that are more focused and require less travel time."

Mr Yam, who is also MP for the GRC, added that North West CDC will continue to bring together employers and community partners like e2i to make job and training opportunities accessible to residents.

Chief executive of e2i Gilbert Tan said the institute has partnered North West CDC on various initiatives as part of its efforts to provide employment assistance to residents whose livelihoods have been affected by Covid-19.

"We will continue to provide the necessary career guidance and job matching facilitation and training support to our local workforce during this difficult period," he said in a statement.