A SkillsFuture initiative that provides an allowance to mid-career workers aged 40 and above taking up training courses will be expanded to include part-time programmes. Starting early next year, workers enrolled in part-time training will get a fixed allowance of S$300 (US$220) a month to help defray their learning expenses, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his annual Budget speech on February 18.
The SkillsFuture Level-Up programme aims to support mid-career workers in upgrading their skills. The programme includes a S$4,000 credit top-up and monthly allowances for those who take time off work to pursue full-time training. For full-time courses, the allowance is set at 50 per cent of a person’s average income over the latest 12-month period, capped at S$3,000 a month. Workers can receive up to 24 months of training allowance throughout their lifetime for both full-time and part-time training. To better support lower-wage workers, the Workfare Skills Support scheme will be enhanced with training allowances modelled after the SkillsFuture Level-Up programme. Currently, the scheme primarily funds short courses completed within a few days. Employers get wage support when workers go for training, while workers who pay for their own courses get an allowance of S$6 an hour. But lower-wage workers “stand to benefit more from longer-form courses that provide more substantial reskilling and upskilling”, said the Prime Minister. The scheme will be enhanced so that lower-wage workers aged 30 and above can qualify for monthly training allowance when they take up selected part-time and full-time courses, according to a factsheet issued by the Ministry of Finance.
The post Singapore offers S$300 monthly allowance for mid-career workers taking up part-time courses appeared first on HR ASIA.
