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Grab that retail position on the go

SINGAPORE — Some 1,200 jobs available in the retail industry will be at the fingertips of job-seekers with the launch yesterday of a new retail-specific mobile phone application.

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SINGAPORE — Some 1,200 jobs available in the retail industry will be at the fingertips of job-seekers with the launch yesterday of a new retail-specific mobile phone application.

Dubbed SIRS Jobs/Courses Mobile, the app from Nanyang Polytechnic’s Singapore Institute of Retail Studies (SIRS) will allow users to sign up and apply directly for jobs listed in its database at any time. Details such as job hours, location and salary are also provided. Should job-seekers not meet the requirements or wish to better themselves, links to courses offered by SIRS will be available within the app itself.

The free app, which was unveiled yesterday at SIRS Retail Seminar, is aimed at helping employers access a wider pool of potential job-seekers amid a tight labour market, more retail space in the pipeline and higher foreign worker levies in the service sector.

Speaking at the seminar, Singapore Workforce Development Agency Chief Executive Wong Hong Kuan felt that raising productivity has become “critical” for retailers to prosper here. “With the backdrop of a tight labour market and more retail space coming up, retailers need to embrace Continuing Education and Training to achieve sustainable growth and profitability. The targeted outcome by retailers should now be a profitable business supported by a highly skilled and competitively remunerated workforce,” he said.

To help companies maintain a competitive edge, productivity and innovation — such as the launch of a new mobile application — would have to move in tandem, Mr Wong added.

SIRS, set up in 2006 to lead Continuing Education and Training in the retail sector, has benefitted about 40,000 workers with its courses and training thus far. Its director, Mr Tan Jek Min, said he hoped the app would help reach out to people who “have never considered a job in the retail sector”, retirees or even “those who have never heard of the retail sector”.

About 80 retailers have already signed up, and the app is available for iOS and Android smartphones by searching for “Jobs & Courses @SIRS”.

Furniture retailer Courts Asia’s Chief Executive Terry O’Connor felt the app would allow the firm to target those interested in joining the industry.

“It is creating another, open channel that pre-qualifies (those interested in the industry) and enables us to have a deeper conversation,” he said.

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