Union members who are aged 40 and over will soon receive more support to upgrade their current skills and learn new ones.
From July 1, they can use up to $500 a year to defray up to half of the out-of-pocket expenses for course fees, under the Union Training Assistance Programme (UTAP). Younger workers will still get $250 a year.
The higher funding level applies until Dec 31, 2022, said the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) in a statement yesterday. The support can be used on some 5,300 courses listed on the NTUC website.
NTUC secretary-general Ng Chee Meng said he is particularly concerned for workers who are 40 and over, regardless of whether they are professionals, managers and executives, or rank-and-file workers.
"This group is double-sandwiched: middle-class and often caring for ageing parents and young children," he said.
"I understand they're anxious because they're at a higher risk of losing their jobs and once (they're) out, it's harder to get back in."
He said he hopes the additional UTAP funding, together with the efforts of NTUC's Job Security Council, which matches workers at risk of losing their jobs with openings before they are retrenched, will give mature workers greater assurance.
The labour market report released by the Ministry of Manpower on Monday said that about 73 per cent of local workers who were retrenched in the first three months of this year are aged 40 and above.
UTAP complements government support for training expenses, such as the SkillsFuture credit. Singaporeans aged 40 to 60 will receive a one-off $1,000 SkillsFuture credit top-up this year.
Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in his national broadcast on Wednesday that the Government is making a concerted effort to help middle-aged and mature Singaporean workers by creating opportunities, such as the chance to work in companies and public sector agencies temporarily, while they prepare for more permanent jobs.
Mr Gilbert Tan, chief executive of NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute, which manages UTAP, also said that as Singapore's economy is likely to face a long and hard road to recovery post-Covid-19, it is important to create more training and career opportunities for mid-career Singaporeans.
"We want to reach out to them now and beyond the pandemic to raise their employability through the enhanced UTAP funding support, so that they can jumpstart with relevant skills when the job market picks up again," he said.
Project manager Johnny Ng, 42, who works in the shipyard industry, used UTAP along with other support schemes to lower the cost of taking up a project management professional course and certification during the circuit breaker period.
He plans to take two other courses this year, if time permits.
"At different stages of life, we need different support. We can see from trends that every decade or two, our current skill sets or experience will need to evolve," he said.
"If not, we will not be able to catch up with society moving as a whole. 'Evolution' is the norm."
