Parliamentary Replies

Parliamentary Question by Mr Leong Mun Wai:

To ask the Minister for Finance for 2020 and 2021, how much of payments under the Jobs Support Scheme are made to companies that are profitable.

Parliamentary Reply by Minister for Finance, Mr Lawrence Wong:

The objective of the Job Support Scheme (JSS) was to provide urgently needed cashflow to firms across the board at the most challenging period of the COVID-19 crisis, in particular during the Circuit Breaker period. The JSS enabled firms to retain their local employees, and to subsequently bounce back from the crisis as local and global demand recovered. Our timely fiscal support, through JSS and other relief schemes, conclusively helped to avert a deeper crisis for Singapore, and in particular helped firms survive the crisis.  

This is why we had designed the JSS such that the eligibility for the scheme is not determined by profitability but by whether the firm employs local workers (evidenced by payment of CPF contributions).  In that context, we should not focus on the profitability of the JSS recipients, but on the outcomes achieved through this scheme, which is aimed at preserving local employment.