Daily Briefing: More hawkers go digital; SGX pursues plan to list SPACs; Graduates struggle to find employment

And Graduates struggle to find employment.

From Channel News Asia

More Singapore hawkwers have started accepting cashless transactions, with 10,000 having adopted the Unified e-Payment Solution by the government's Hawkers Gone Digital program.

E-payment transactions breached the 1.12 million volume mark and $14m value mark in January, the highest since the program launched June last year.

Registered shareholders may receive $300 e-payment bonus for every month where they receive less than 20 transactions for five months. To encourage more registrants, the eligibility period for this bonus has been extended from 31 December 2020 to 31 May 2021.

The Hawkers Gone Digital program aims to register a total of 18,000 stallholders by June 2021.

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From Bloomberg

The Singapore Exchange might list Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) this year, according to Chief Executive Officer Loh Boon Chye.

“If the market is supportive, we hope to be able to do that sometime this year,” Loh said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that this could provide lower market risk exposure for investors.

A market consultation on this measure will be conducted within this quarter.

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From Channel News Asia

Fewer university graduates have found permanent full-time jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results of the annual Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Survey showed that 69.8% of fresh gradautes found permanent full-time jobs in 2020, lower than the 81.7% reported in 2019.

There was also a rise in fresh graduates who found part-time or temporary employment, 22.3% in 2020 compared to 7% in 2019.

The survey polled 11,800 fresh graduates from Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, and the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

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