SINGAPORE — SEEK, which owns and operates Southeast Asia’s leading career platforms JobStreet and JobsDB, has launched an accessible, easy-to-use, and free platform called JobStreet Express, which is now live in Singapore. JobStreet Express aims to help employers in Singapore fill the gap in semi-skilled workers, and hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans find work faster, easier, and with greater trust and safety.
The semi-skilled segment in Singapore makes up more than 40% of job vacancies in the country. Indonesia and Singapore are the two largest contributors to this segment, particularly for key industries such as F&B, Retail, Hospitality, Logistics and General Services. In Singapore, according to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the nation is still facing difficulties in filling semi-skilled (commonly referred to as non-PMET in Singapore) vacancies. In 2022, 34% of these job vacancies took more than six months to fill.
SEEK has been developing JobStreet Express for over 18 months, readying for the Singapore market. The platform was first launched in Indonesia in October 2022 and is now present in four localities—Bali, Bandung, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, with more cities in the pipeline. Since its beta launch, the platform has onboarded as many as 29,000 companies and 425,000 talent in Indonesia.
JobStreet Express, developed by an integrated Asia Pacific team from Singapore, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, is part of SEEK’s multi-million investments on growth initiatives in the region. This builds upon SEEK’s A$180 million investment program to strengthen its competitiveness through the unification of its core product and technology platforms across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia.
Anshu Nahar, Managing Director of Express & Flex at SEEK, said, “The semi-skilled segment has traditionally been underserved. People in this segment often resort to unstructured and sometimes unsafe means to find jobs and talent. Both employers and talent feel that existing solutions just don’t work for them anymore. Through JobStreet Express, SEEK is committed to serving this segment with a dedicated platform, backed by millions of dollars of investment, our years of expertise, world-class technology, and trusted brand.”
Using SEEK’s robust technology, this free platform targets the semi-skilled segment and is designed to meet their specific needs. It was built to be mobile-first to cater to the majority of users in this segment who are regularly on the move. Semi-skilled talent in Singapore now have the opportunity to easily find jobs through SEEK’s proprietary matching technology to connect talent with employers based on their experiences, availability, and preferences. Additionally, the platform aims to close the application process in just a matter of hours or days, unlike traditional recruitment processes, which could take weeks or even months.
To fast-track and simplify the hiring process, JobStreet Express will be making resumes optional on the platform before the end of the year. As long as talents provide the necessary information directly on their profiles, employers will no longer need to download and go through dozens of resumes for every role they post. This will allow talent to focus on applying for jobs rather than designing or updating their resumes, something typically difficult to do on a mobile device.
Over the next several months, JobStreet Express will be enhancing its speed and matching capabilities even more, with some optional paid features to be made available in due course, catering to specific user needs. However, the platform’s basic functions, including the ability for any employer to post any semi-skilled role and the ability for any Singaporean to apply, will always remain free and accessible to everyone across Singapore.
Anshu added, “Though SEEK has been in the business for over 25 years, our tech startup mindset to constantly evolve and innovate has always been there. We’re leveraging our years of experience and expertise to provide tailored solutions for the semi-skilled segment with this new and exciting offering where we’ve made significant investments in. We currently have a team of more than 75 people to help grow JobStreet Express’s presence in the region from product, sales, marketing, data, and analytics. It wasn’t a decision we took lightly, to invest our future growth in this segment, but we believe it was the right decision as part of our commitment to help millions of people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and organizations to succeed.”
SEEK plans to expand JobStreet Express across APAC in the near future.
