Term 1 Week 2 - Blog Prompt Q3 - Silver Workforce

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

I have been invited by the Manpower Ministry to give a short speech on why you should hire older workers. By hiring older workers, you only stand to gain as there is a "Advantage" scheme created by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency which pays the companies money for recruiting, retaining and re-employing older workers. A single company can be provided up to a maximum of $400,000 for recruiting workers aged 40 and above, retaining workers aged 55 to 61 and re-employing workers beyond 62.

Another reason is that older workers are more experienced than younger workers. When they were young and working, they had faced many challenges and gone through a lot of hardships, thus they would have learnt from their mistakes and would perform better in their work.

I feel that the government could expand more employment opportunities for older workers, enhance cost competitiveness of them, raise the skills and values of them and shape positive perception towards them. Hopefully by 2010, more older workers will be re-employed and the economy in Singapore will pick up.

I have come to the end of my speech. Thank you.