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Initiatives Towards Preserving Jobs

Jobs Credit

To sustain jobs the Government will introduce a Jobs Credit Scheme which will encourage all businesses to preserve jobs in this downturn. This is a temporary one year scheme for 2009.

Details of the scheme are as follows

• Employers will receive a 12% cash grant on the first S$2,500 for each month’s wage for each employee on their CPF payroll.
• Employers will receive the Jobs Credit in four quarterly payments in March, June, September, and December 2009.
• Employer are not required to apply for the Jobs Credit as it will be paid to companies at the end of each quarter in respect of employees that are on CPF payrolls at the start of that quarter.

SPUR for Workers and Professionals

To help Singaporeans upgrade their skills so that they can stay employed or seek re-employment, the Government will enhance the Skills Program for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) with the following measures:

• Course fee subsidies for PMET (Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Technicians) level courses that are eligible for SPUR will be increased from 80% to 90%, the same subsidy level as rank-and-file level courses. This includes all Specialist and Advanced Diplomas offered by the polytechnics.
• Selected tertiary courses at UniSIM and three publicly funded universities will be included under SPUR.

Workforce Income Supplement (WIS) Special Payment

WIS was introduced two years ago to encourage workers who among other conditions are at least 35 years of age and earn a monthly income of S$1,500 or less to remain employed. WIS payments are split between cash and CPF contributions. The Government will now give low income workers a temporary WIP special payment to further supplement their pay.

Accordingly, low income workers will be provided with an additional 50% of the WIS payments, as the WIS special payment which they will receive over the course of the year.

Initiatives Towards Stimulating Bank Lending

Special Risk Sharing Initiative (SRI)

To ensure viable companies continue to have access to credit to sustain their operations and keep jobs, SRI will help extend Government’s support to a broader segment of the credit market, especially mid-sized companies and share in their risks of trade financing for the first time.

The main features of the SRI are the introduction of

• New Bridging Loan Programme – improving the access to working capital loans for all Singapore-based companies especially mid-sized companies.
• New Loan Insurance scheme – Assisting Singapore-based companies to secure working capital and trade financing by providing private insurance to bankers against default by borrowers.
• New Trade Credit Insurance Programme – Providing better access to trade credit insurance cover for Singapore-based exporters. The Programme provides insurance against non-payment by buyers. The Government will be examining ways to increase the insurance coverage capacity and will also be subsidising part of the insurance payments.

Enhancement of Existing Credit Measures

• International Finance Scheme – The Government will increase the maximum loan quantum per borrower group from S$15 million to S$50 million.
• The Government will also be increasing its share of risk in certain other loan programmes and financing schemes.