MOM extends Jobs Growth Initiative until March 2022

Approximately 400,000 locals were hired through the government programme.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) announced via a news release that close to 400,000 locals were hired by 58,000 businesses with support from the Jobs Growth Initiative (JGI) as of May 2021. 

This is an increase of about 128,000 to the JGI-backed hires in Feburary 2021. 99% of the businesses affected by this were small-medium enterprises.

The JGI is also extended by another six months from October 2021 to March 2022. This is to continue the expansion of local hiring.

Those aged below 40 years old will receive 15% of the first $5,000 for up to six months, with up to $4,500 total incentives per hire. 

Meanwhile those aged above 40, persons with disabilities, and ex-offenders will receive 50% of the first $6,000 for up to 12 years, with up to $36,000 incentives per hire. 

The food services saw the most hires with 57,600 new hires under the initiative. 31,510 were considered mature hires, whilst 26,090 were below 40 years old. 

Retail, meanwhile, saw the least hires at 23,610. 13,540 were mature hires, whilst 10,070 were none-mature hires.

Other notable observations from the survey were that half of the 400,000 JGI-backed hires were not employed at the time, close to half of JGi-supported hires were considered mature and that six out of 10 were employed in a different sector.