The first 50 of 200 workers of Murata Electronics began their lessons yesterday under the Skills Programme and Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) programme.

Introduced on Dec 1, the $600 million Spur scheme will pay for part of the workers wages while they are on training. The aim is to encourage employers to send their workers for retraining, rather than retrenching them.

For Murata, Spur will save the company about $143,875 in wage costs while they are on training for three and a half months.

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