Three-pronged approach to keep Singapore prospering
SINGAPORE — With the Republic’s unemployment rate expected to creep up further as its economy matures, the Government will help businesses create new jobs, get displaced workers re-employed, and train employees to deepen and broaden their skills in their current roles.
SINGAPORE — With the Republic’s unemployment rate expected to creep up further as its economy matures, the Government will help businesses create new jobs, get displaced workers re-employed, and train employees to deepen and broaden their skills in their current roles.
Speaking at the May Day Rally held at Our Tampines Hub, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that the unemployment rate has climbed to 2.3 per cent due to economic restructuring. This is low compared to developed countries, which have typically much higher unemployment rates of at least 5 per cent, and sometimes even as high as 10 per cent, he said.
The rally was attended by about 1,500 people including Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, business leaders and unionists.
Over the past week, Mr Lee as well as Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say had warned that the unemployment rate is expected to go up in the future.
On Monday (May 1), Mr Lee reiterated: “We are feeling the same pressures as other developed countries, the industries have to continue restructuring. Our workforce is getting older, and older workers who lose jobs tend to take longer to find new jobs, and to get back into the workforce.”
Singapore has to understand the trend but at the same time work hard to resist it, and keep its workers in jobs, he added.
In order for Singapore to continue to prosper, “it comes down to three things — jobs, jobs and jobs, but three different ways of thinking about jobs”, Mr Lee said.
“Creating new jobs by bringing in new businesses and investments ... Finding replacement jobs for workers who have lost their jobs or are out of work, and training workers to grow in their current jobs, to do something bigger, more productive,” he said.
In creating new jobs, Singapore will depend on its “winning formula” of bringing in new businesses and investments. For example, chip-maker Micron recently invested more than S$5.4 billion and its expansion here led to 500 jobs being created, Mr Lee noted. Technology giant Google, too, opened a new campus in Mapletree Business City, offering 1,000 jobs. In October last year, chemicals manufacturer Evonik broke ground for a second plant on Jurong Island. The S$800 million investment is expected to create 150 jobs.
Meanwhile, the Government is helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) — not just high technology firms, but also those in traditional industries — to upgrade and venture overseas, as well as expand and build new capabilities.
Mr Lee cited the example of a family-owned business that has transformed itself more than once to keep up with the times: Grandluxe started 75 years ago as a book-binding workshop, offering the service of binding reports and papers into hard cover or leather-bound volumes. It then went into the business of printing notebooks and stationery. Today, with no one binding reports anymore, and people not needing diaries or notebooks as much, it has reinvented itself: It started a spin-off company called Bynd Artisan, which provides a retail experience in which customers select the materials for the employees to turn into leather books and other goods.
“What Bynd Artisan did, Spring and IE Singapore are helping many other SMEs to do. Not every SME can become a retail boutique bookbinder, but many can reinvent themselves and find new niches in which they can grow,” Mr Lee said.
He also highlighted government efforts to help workers who have lost their jobs to find new ones, particularly in industries that are not doing well. With oil prices falling sharply, and an overcapacity leading to a dearth of new orders for drilling rigs in the past two years, the offshore and marine industry has lost about 30,000 jobs since its last peak, noted Mr Lee.
While foreign workers were the first to be let go, some Singaporean workers have been affected. Last year, about 1,000 people in the industry lost their jobs, and “another few hundreds” are expected to do so this year.
Mr Lee said the unions have been helping the affected workers — including engineers — find new jobs in other sectors that need similar skills, such as the transport and aviation industries. For their part, workers need to constantly upgrade — like their counterparts overseas, Mr Lee stressed.
“Unless we are as hungry as them, as determined as them ... our cheese will be stolen. We have to make that effort, we have to strive and ... keep our position,” said Mr Lee, noting that national skills redevelopment programme SkillsFuture has given Singapore a good head start.
Mr Lee reiterated that it is inevitable that some workers will be displaced as companies restructure. On the economic front, Mr Lee said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the Singapore economy, given that global growth was looking up.
“Last year we grew 2 per cent, better than expected. And what’s even more encouraging is that ... our productivity was improving,” said Mr Lee, who is expecting the economy to do even better this year. “That means that the economy can continue to grow, even though my workforce is not expanding.” This also means that workers can earn more, and the challenge is to stay the course — continue innovating and raising productivity, he said.