Radin Mas residents can now apply for jobs through SMS
Radin Mas residents seeking temporary, part-time, contract and full-time jobs in their neighbourhood can now apply for them via SMS.
Mobile job portal FastJobs launched its first kiosk at Radin Mas Community Club yesterday as part of efforts to connect older workers with job opportunities near their homes.
Up to 20 FastKiosks will be set up at other community centres by the end of the year.
At the kiosk, residents select a job they are interested in, send a text message to the mobile number provided and answer questions from employers sent by an SMS bot. Employers can then contact the applicants directly.
There are plans to expand the kiosks - built with a simple user interface to cater to older residents - to more community clubs, vocational schools, malls and residents' corners, the firm's regional business development director Joelle Pang said.
The kiosks will also be made available in more languages over time, she added.
The pilot kiosk will offer job opportunities such as retail assistant and customer service associate positions from 10 employers in and around the Radin Mas neighbourhood, including Cheers, KFC and Sasa.
FastJobs, a Singapore Press Holdings start-up, focuses on blue-collar workforce recruitment and sees an average of 5,000 jobs posted a month.
The FastKiosk was launched at a National Day event attended by some 500 residents.
Radin Mas MP Sam Tan said at the launch that the community club's partnership with FastJobs is part of a move to "enable the community, especially the older workers, with digital literacy skills", a move which is in line with Singapore's Smart Nation initiative.
Mr Tan Kheng Hoe, 72, who was at the event yesterday, said he would consider using the kiosk to look for part-time work in customer service where he can put his language skills in English, Mandarin, Malay and dialect to good use.
He said: "I want to keep working because it is boring to retire and stay at home.
"This platform is more convenient to use, but it would be better to have a Chinese language option or someone to assist as some of the elderly may not know how to use it."
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