On 26 May, Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced the Fortitude Budget in Parliament. The theme of the Fortitude Budget was the three “Cs”, which are cash flow, costs and credit.
Enhanced Job Support Scheme
One facet of the Fortitude Budget is the Enhanced Job Support scheme. Since the start of the Circuit Breaker, the Government came up with the Jobs Support Scheme(JSS) to release the burden on firms. Upon the announcement of the Enhanced JSS, JSS will be extended for another month to cover all firms and will be strengthened to provide further support. Firms like cinemas and retail outlets that cannot resume operations immediately after the end of Circuit Breaker will be provided wage support at 75 per cent until August 2020 or when they are allowed to re-open, whichever comes first. Some firms will also be re-classified in the different JSS tiers. Eligible firms will receive a back-payment to top up their previous JSS payouts to the higher level of support. Lastly, the Foreign Worker Levy waiver and rebate will be extended for up to two months.
Majority of firms in Singapore have definitely been badly affected by the Covid-19 situation, causing them to lay off many workers. The Enhanced JSS will be able to provide further and longer duration support to firms to encourage them to keep their workers and reduce retrenchment or prolonged no-pay leave. As the Circuit Breaker ends and we slowly inch into Phase 1, many companies are still not allowed to re-open. The Enhanced JSS will be crucial in assisting many firms and employees to continue to tide through these tough times.
Creating jobs for active job seekers
Another aspect would be the government deciding to create jobs for active job seekers. They have launched a SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, creating 40,000 jobs, 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 in skills training. It is without a doubt that the job market is looking very bleak at this point of time- with almost every industry affected. The fact the government has the foresight to create many different jobs will most definitely give people a peace of mind. However, it is also important that individuals are proactive, and put in effort to develop their skills, and seek for jobs- to work hand in hand with the government’s aid to better themselves. We need to be efficient and smart- even with different jobs, jobs that pay less. We will slowly figure out which costly steps matter, and build a careful, efficient economy.
In these uncertain times, there have been efforts made by the government to help everyone better cope. Adapting business practices to the careful economy will take lots of inventive thought. Already there are calls for long lists of new regulations. Perhaps certain measures would enshrine ideas that seemed good at the time but turn out to be costly, unproductive or unsuited later. We also need to accept the fact that the carefully reopened economy will be less efficient than the pre-pandemic economy. This Covid-19 pandemic is testing everybody’s resolve, and this is a truly challenging time.
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