SINGAPORE — Young jobseekers transiting from school to the workforce can soon seek out “quality internship” experiences when a new web portal comes online in September, the labour movement said on Thursday (July 13).

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) announced in a press statement that from Sept 1, it will open applications to eligible jobseekers on the Career Starter Lab portal, an initiative that aims to give youths more opportunities in navigating new careers upon graduation.

This move comes after NTUC's Youth Taskforce, which was launched in July 2022, conducted a year-long engagement with 10,568 youths between the ages of 17 and 25. The study found that mentorship is the most important resource needed for youths to start and progress in their careers.

More than half of the respondents were surveyed during the taskforce’s roving exhibition Youth Hub, while the rest were polled during dialogues, focus group discussions, as well as an online survey of around 2,300 respondents.

The study, which surveyed youths in the areas of career, finances, and mental well-being, also found that 14.2 per cent of youths said that quality internships would better equip them to work towards their desired career.

However, the youth respondents also flagged concerns about the quality of internships they have experienced, such as a mismatch of roles and poor communication by supervisors.

“To this end, NTUC calls on schools and employers to factor in students’ feedback on their internship experience and enhance the quality of students’ learning and development in subsequent runs offered by companies,” said the labour movement.

The career portal pilot was first announced by NTUC and the Singapore National Employers Federation in May this year.

NTUC said in its statement that the lab was based on an “enhanced career trial model” to lend support to youths who had recently completed their National Service or graduated from an institute of higher learning.

The labour movement added that more than 100 host companies, with more than 160 roles and over 900 vacancies, have registered their interest since the pilot was announced.

Eligible job seekers would be able to apply for these vacancies through the Career Starter Lab portal from September, NTUC said.

Under the Career Starter Lab programme, successful youth applicants can embark on an internship with a host company to explore a mutual job fit for a trial period of three months before continuing on with full-time employment.

The programme is open to young people who had either graduated from the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), polytechnics, or autonomous universities, or completed their full-time National Service in the current year. They would be offered a monthly salary of between S$1,800 and S$4,200.

They would also receive career trial support during the period, with an allowance of at least S$7.50 per hour, for up to 480 hours. This is equivalent to about three months, based on a 40-hour work week.

Young workers would also be offered a retention incentive if they were hired by their host companies after the trial, and continued to work there for at least three more months.

NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng said: “The NTUC youth taskforce findings have given us very useful outlook to partner youths coming into the workplace.

“There are still many things that we will discover along the way and NTUC hopes to be able to partner our youth to continue to innovate and find better ways to serve them as they transition from school to work and co-create the future of work and workplace with them.”

GREATER ACCESSIBILITY TO CAREER MENTORSHIP

The taskforce found that youths, especially fresh entrants into the workforce in their first and second year, did not have many resources to access mentorship programmes outside of their organisations, NTUC said.

Similar to how youth respondents felt about internship opportunities, career mentorship also consistently emerged as one of the top three resources that youths felt would be useful as they enter the workforce, and advance their careers.

Half of the youths surveyed online chose mentorship among their top five most useful resources, with 10.5 per cent of these respondents indicating mentorship as the top resource among the five resources they picked out.

In response to the growing demand for career mentorship, NTUC said that it would scale up its number of career mentors to reach 1,200 by 2025. The union added that it would also widen the sectors these mentors came from, and provide the necessary training they required.

In addition, NTUC will set up MentorSHIP, a new initiative by the labour movement that aims to provide a platform for mentor and mentees to build a professional relationship, focusing on industry mentorships and other complementary career support services.

OTHER KEY FINDINGS AND INITIATIVES

The engagement found that more than one in five (22.5 per cent) youths surveyed at the Youth Hub exhibition worried most about being able to achieve work-life balance when entering the workforce.

Beyond this, other top concerns for youth new-joiners to the workforce included whether they would be able to adapt at work or decide on career paths without being limited by others’ expectations.

About 17.9 per cent of the respondents worried about being able to adapt to work, while 11.9 per cent worried about being able to decide on a career path without being limited by the expectation of others.

When asked what the top three resources for helping them in their career would be, more than one in 10 youths (10.5 per cent) surveyed online chose career mentorships with industry mentors related to their areas of study.

Job preparation sessions with working professionals and extra funding support for training and upskilling were the next top choices, with 9.7 per cent and 9.1 per cent of online youth respondents choosing the two respectively.

The focus group discussions also found that the majority (78.7 per cent) of youth respondents perceived mental well-being support in the workplace as important.

To this end, NTUC aims to expand its network of certified peer supporters in the workplace who would foster a “psychologically safe environment” for their colleagues. 

The labour movement plans to train 2,500 peer supporters by 2025, up from its current network of about 1,026 trained peer supporters.