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SINGAPORE: Labour chief Lim Swee Say has urged Singaporeans not to be preoccupied with forecasts of retrenchment numbers but focus instead on saving jobs.

Mr Lim was commenting on DBS Bank’s earlier estimate that Singapore will see job losses amounting to 99,000 by mid—2010.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) event on Friday, he noted that no agency can say with certainty what the retrenchment numbers will be for this year.

Mr Lim said: "Take for example, the International Labour Organisation. They came up with not one forecast, but three different forecasts. The projection from ILO ranges from 18 million, all the way to 51 million (worldwide).

"This big range of job loss forecast by ILO, kind of, sends a very clear signal that we’re into highly uncertain times. In other words, from the Labour Movement’s point of view, we’re not going to be preoccupied with ourselves, in terms of what will be the likely number of job losses in the coming year.

"The NTUC secretary—general added that the Labour Movement will help workers on three fronts.He said: "On the first front is to minimise retrenchment, minimise job losses by cutting costs to save jobs. And secondly, to minimise unemployment by helping workers who have lost their jobs to go for retraining... help them to job match, to go back to the employment market again.

"Thirdly, to create new employment to ensure that Singapore will not run out of jobs for Singaporeans.

"On Tuesday, NTUC deputy secretary—general Halimah Yacob said about 4,300 unionised workers will lose their jobs in the first quarter of this year. The electronics sector alone has accounted for 2,500 retrenchments so far.