Writing on the NTUC blog yesterday (Dec 28), PAP MP and also Assistant Secretary-General of NTUC Patrick Tay openly plagiarised the Workers’ Party idea calling for unemployment benefits.Two weeks ago, the Workers’ Party called on the government to provide unemployment benefits under an insurance-premium model, to help workers tide over bills and expenses while they look for a job. PAP MP Patrick Tay yesterday (Dec 28) called on the government to provide similar benefits in the form of “allowance” to support unemployment workers seeking training under the SkillsFutures courses.
However, the Workers’ Party’s suggestion was shot down by PAP MP Zainal Sapari who called their idea “a moral hazard”. PAP MP Zainal Sapari remained silent over his fellow PAP MP’s suggestion for an unemployment benefit.
In his blog post, MP Patrick Tay also claimed that retrenched workers are not able to find a new job because of mis-matches in expectations, skills and jobs. Earlier last month in August, PAP MP Patrick Tay wrote in his Facebook note that Singaporean professionals who were retrenched have “unrealistic expectations”:
“Second, mismatch of expectations. My colleagues at our U PME Centre and e2i have highlighted that there are some PMEs who go to them with unrealistic expectations in terms of the type of jobs and conditions.”
PAP MP Patrick Tay also suggested to direct retrenched Singaporeans into several sectors he claimed to be “doing well” with “second-skilling; deep-skilling; up-skilling; multi-skilling or cross-skilling”:
“We will help Singaporeans take up relevant jobs in the financial, infocomm technology, engineering and manufacturing, and healthcare sectors…signal the skills required so that we can work within the labour movement or externally with IHLs and other private/industry training providers to facilitate/catalyse/encourage second-skilling; deep-skilling; up-skilling; multi-skilling or cross-skilling of our workers and workforce for these new jobs.”
You may view PAP MP Patrick Tay’s post here.
