In the recruitment section of local sections, more than 60% are dedicated to hiring cleaners and Food and Beverages (F&B) personnel.

A Human Resource (HR) manager opined that it is normal that blue-collar jobs have the most vacancies as industries recover from pandemic conditions.

Truth to be told, even before the pandemic, there has always been a shortage of manpower for blue-collar jobs in Singapore. It’s just worse now.

Generally speaking, newspapers and media sites have advertising columns for customers to let them deliver classified information, be it for leasing, resale or employment.

However, there has been an uptick in classified advertisements that are recruiting cleaners, dishwashers, cooks, and service staff, especially for the F&B industry.

After flipping through the recent job vacancies in the advertising columns of Lianhe Zaobao and Shin Min Daily News, the most popular recruitment category indeed belonged to “cleaning staff” and “food stall assistants”.

These two categories accounted for at least 60% of the recruitment notices.

For the F&B industry, the jobs could be anything from assistants, chefs, apprentices, to dishwashers, while places such as offices and shopping malls are looking for cleaners.

Wu Kuanhao, the marketing director of the HR company ManPower Group opined that after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, there are a large number of previously vacant positions that need to be filled.

He also pointed out that there was also a shortage of manpower for hotel housekeeping, personnel in warehouse and logistics, and dry-cleaning services as well.

The skills needed for these types of jobs are very similar, and new recruits can be trained.

To make matters more difficult, the policy for hiring foreign employees has been tightened, and these blue-collar jobs are not well-received among Singaporeans.

It’s no surprise the companies are struggling to hire people for these jobs.

Featured Image: Shin Min Daily News 新明日报