Singapore job-seeker aid of SGD 6,000 will be available to HDB dwellers, says manpower minister

People of Singapore living in HDB flats would be eligible for the SGD 6,000 job-seeker aid — to come into effect from April 2025 — if they meet certain criteria, according to Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng.

This SGD 6,000 financial support, to be given to an individual job-seeker for a maximum of 6 months, is meant to help them after a job loss until they find a new job.

Those eligible for this financial support would have to show an average monthly income of SGD 5,000 or less, over a period of 12 months before their job loss. They would also have to live in a property with an annual value of SGD 25,000 or under; and they must not have received any benefit payout from the financial support scheme in the 3 years before applying for the 6K aid.

Anyone who does not meet all the stated criteria for the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme can still apply for it. They can appeal to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Answering questions from several MPs on the support scheme in the Singapore Parliament the day before yesterday, Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng said that job-seeker aid applications would be assessed by a system combining readily available government data and verification checks by a Workforce Singapore team.

Concerning HDB dwellers and their eligibility for this aid, the minister said, “The threshold of [annual property value of] SGD 25,000 for the [job-seeker support] scheme is aligned with other schemes such as the GST Voucher scheme. This covers about 75 per cent of residential properties, including all HDB flats.”

To a question on why the SGD 6,000 support scheme gave the same benefit to Singaporean citizens and permanent residents, the minister said that while Singaporean citizens got the most support in housing, health care, education and parenthood, permanent residents were also committed to Singapore, contributed to the national economy, and thus deserved support in their “hard times”.