UP TO 1000 JOBS TO BE CREATED BY PROJECT JEWEL, HOW MANY WILL GO TO SINGAPOREANS?

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PM Lee announced Project Jewel at his National Day Rally this year.

Since then, more details have come out about the project with human resource experts saying that we can expect up to 1000 new jobs to be created by the development.

Job opportunities include positions in retail, food and beverage, as well as shopping mall and facilities management.

At the moment, jobs in these industries are often dominated by foreign workers. Many food and beverage outlets hire large numbers of foreign workers and even have foreign workers in management positions.

However, human resource experts say that as the project is due to be completed by 2019, there will be enough time to prepare the workforce for these jobs.

While it would be good to see more Singaporeans skill up in these areas and take on the jobs, there are doubts about how many of the jobs will actually be taken by Singaporeans.

At the moment, there are a few courses offered in Polys and through the Singapore Workforce Development Agency on areas such as marketing and retail management.

It is always possible to retrain Singaporeans but educators believe that the intake of students is not likely to increase significantly as retail experience is gained mainly from hands-on experiences rather than through the classroom.

If not many Singaporeans are taking up the courses that would prepare them for the jobs being opened up by Project Jewel, it leads to the question of just how many Singaporeans will actually be working in the new lifestyle attraction.

The budget for the development also hasn’t been released further adding to the concern that the whole project will be a large use of public funds only to create another tourist attraction giving jobs to foreigners.

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