Additional Course Funding Support from Singapore Budget 2020
The Singapore 2020 budget was announced on 18 Feb 2020. Here’s how it will benefit Singaporeans and Equinet’s learners.
- SkillsFuture Credit top-up for Singaporean Individuals
- SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC) for eligible companies
SkillsFuture Credit Top Up for Singaporean Individuals
All Singaporeans aged 25 and above will be eligible for a SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $500 from Oct this year. The good news gets better for those aged 40 to 60 as of 31st Dec this year because there will be an additional top-up of $500, effectively receiving $1000 in SkillsFuture Credit.
But this time, there is a time limit for the additional SkillsFuture Credit as it will expire by the end of 2025. However, for those that have not yet expended the original $500 in SkillsFuture Credit, there will be no expiry date set.
This was announced recently in Singapore Budget 2020 by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat. According to him, it has served many Singaporeans well and at the end of 2019, it has benefited more than half a million Singaporeans.
SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC) for Eligible Companies
The SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC) encourages employers to undertake enterprise and workforce transformation initiatives in tandem. Eligible employers will receive a one-off $10,000 credit to cover up to 90% of out-of-pocket expenses for supportable enterprise capability development and workforce transformation programmes.
To encourage employers to undertake workforce transformation to reskill and upskill their workers, $3,000 of the SFEC will be reserved for workforce transformation programmes. This means that employers can use up to $10,000 for workforce transformation, but can only use up to $7,000 on enterprise transformation programmes.
Eligibility Criteria:
The SFEC is expected to benefit about 39,000 enterprises. Employers have four qualifying windows1 until 31 March 2021 to qualify for SFEC. At each of the qualifying windows (End-June 2020, end-September 2020, end-December 2020 and end-March 2021), employers must have contributed at least $750 Skills Development Levy (SDL) in total in the preceding 12 months and have at least three Singapore Citizens/Permanent Residents employed in each of the preceding 12 months, based on latest available data2.
Upon qualification, employers will be able to use the SFEC on supportable schemes any time from 1 April 2020, with claims to be submitted latest by 30 June 2023.
Source: https://www.skillsfuture.gov.sg/sfec
Conclusion
So, what are the next up-and-coming skills that you should have? Skills that are fun, challenging and improves your career. We recommend that you double-down on Digital Marketing as digital marketing skills are still very much sought-after and the digital skills gaps are set to widen.
To know more about digital marketing, we have written an in-depth digital marketing career guide. You will find out why the forecast for digital marketing is set to be up trending. We have also compiled the average salary ranges of the different digital marketing job roles in Singapore, various essential digital marketing skills a digital marketing professional should possess, and how a digital marketing team is structured on both the agency and client-side.
To learn more about digital marketing, check out our array of digital marketing courses taught in-person in Singapore or online.