At the National Day Rally 2023, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that under Forward SG, the Government has plans to offer temporary financial support for workers who are retrenched, while they upgrade their skills. I am heartened that the Government has heard the ground and is working towards helping those who lose their jobs involuntarily, while they retrain.

Since 2014, I have spoken about the need for some form of unemployment support or insurance to tide retrenched and unemployed workers over the difficult periods they face before they land their next job. More recently, in the joint National Trades Union Congress-Singapore National Employers Federation professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) task force, which I co-chaired with SNEF executive director Sim Gim Guan, one of our key recommendations was to strengthen unemployment support for PMEs who are involuntarily unemployed, by introducing a national transitionary financial support framework supplemented by active labour market policy.