Sectoral Manpower and Skills Development Strategies for Traditional Industries

Mr Thomas Chua Kee Seng asked the Minister for Manpower following plans by the SkillsFuture Council and WDA to develop sectoral manpower strategies for growth sectors such as biologics, precision engineering and services, what are the plans to develop similar manpower strategies for the traditional industries where many SMEs are involved in.

The Minister for Manpower (Mr Tan Chuan-Jin): Mdm Speaker, the Sectoral Manpower Strategies (SMS) is a key initiative under the SkillsFuture Council that brings together employers, unions, education and training providers, and Government to anticipate the future skills that will be needed and set out a strategy for developing those skills in our people. Each SMS seeks to achieve three objectives.

Firstly, identify the current and future skills and manpower needs in the sector, and where there will be quality jobs for our people. To do this, each SMS will need to identify the future skills that will be needed given the industry outlook, stage of development, competitive landscape and impact of key driving forces such as technology advancement.

Secondly, based on the skills needs identified for the sector, articulate and develop clear career progression pathways that will set out the key competencies and skills needed to progress at each stage of the individual's career. These career pathways will be closely integrated with education, training and development – so that there is greater fluidity between learning and working as the individual progresses in his career. In doing so, the SMS achieves two objectives – it builds a future supply of talent to meet the sectors' needs, and provides for more meaningful pathways for workers who choose to work in those sectors.

Lastly, each SMS should include plans to better attract, retain and develop talent, so that workers can acquire deep skills, contribute in their chosen areas of expertise, and have fulfilling careers, with progression not just in wages, but also to gain a deeper sense of pride and satisfaction that comes with mastery of skills.

On a broader level, the SMS encourages a shift among employers – from a "plug and play" mindset where employers seek to hire workers who already have all the necessary skills, without further thought of development and training – this has changed. So we need to move on to an approach where employers will proactively develop every worker, providing career pathways and valuing their contributions as they advance. And some companies are already doing that. The Government will be a key enabler in these efforts, by providing resource support and helping to coordinate and enhance the linkages between all players.

But the key, I think, really lies with industries, sectors and especially the companies in taking that step to develop the workers. As a start, we will focus our efforts on a set of lead sectors that have more pressing manpower needs. These lead sectors cover essential services such as healthcare and social services; new growth sectors that provide exciting job opportunities for Singaporeans but do not necessarily have a ready pipeline of workers, such as biopharmaceuticals; and sectors facing significant manpower challenges, such as construction, retail, and F&B. We will progressively expand our efforts to other sectors.

In direct response to the Member's question, we will pay particular attention to our SMEs. A large proportion of the companies in the lead sectors are SMEs. We recognise the manpower challenges that SMEs face, and how they often have limited resources and bandwidth to plan for the future. So one clear benefit of the Sectoral Manpower Strategies will be to provide SMEs with a clearer sense of the sector's direction and needs, and draw together the necessary resources, from which SMEs can tap, to support the attraction, retention, training and development of workers in their sectors.

In addition, the Government also helps our SMEs through a range of schemes. These include the Enterprise Training Support Grant, Innovation and Capability Voucher (ICV), and the SME Talent Programme. SMEs that need customised advisory services can also approach one of the 12 SME Centres located island-wide. So, through these various measures, we believe that this is the way that we can work together to develop the space as we go forward.

Mr Ang Hin Kee (Ang Mo Kio): The Minister mentioned that for SMEs, they face certain constraints, but another category of workers who may benefit from the Sectoral Manpower Strategies will be your freelancers, sport coaches, cabbies, adult educators, who basically also require skills upgrading in order to prepare themselves for the future. Otherwise, for them, they will have to be the business managers, the implementors, the finance managers and the manpower persons themselves. So, I would like to enquire if the Ministry will consider setting aside some resources or efforts to study the needs of freelancers to see whether or not they can be incorporated into its overall plan when it comes to implement these future strategies.

Mr Tan Chuan-Jin: Mdm Speaker, we will be happy to do so, but I would like to emphasise that apart from specific lead sectors, even as it is today, we are looking at providing a wide range of further development and skills upgrading for a full range of workers. What we want to stress is that there are particular sectors that we are emphasising, because they are large sectors that provide opportunities to many. But we recognise that not just for those who are operating individually. There are many different needs in society. So, we do intend to develop that space so that lifelong learning is not just confined to these sectors alone. Every Singaporean would have opportunities to develop themselves in their respective areas. We will be quite happy to take on feedback if there are particular areas and initiatives we think that we can introduce and see how they can be incorporated. But the main idea is that every Singaporean should have before him or her the availability of different schemes and opportunities to upgrade themselves, so that they can either deepen their skills in their particular profession or to switch sectors to do something different.

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon): Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister whether there is anything that can be done to address the acute shortage of manpower in the childcare sector – kindergarten and childcare – because, today, I see the situation of "musical chair". When there is a new childcare centre being set up, there will be a lot of resignations from a nearby childcare centre because the new one cannot get the staff and just offer higher salaries. I do not think that this will solve the problem. I think we need to do more to train and attract more people into this sector. So, is there anything that can be done to address this shortage?

Mr Tan Chuan-Jin: Mdm Speaker, if the Member would like to file a specific PQ on this, but, broadly, I would say that there are many different sectors today, and not just the childcare sector, that face a challenge in terms of finding manpower. The reasons are as follows: by and large, the economy is doing relatively well. We do have many sectors that are growing and that represents a demand on manpower. Eventually, I think the market will have to find its own stabilisation point, and this applies to the childcare sector as well.

What we do want to make sure is that we provide the training and schemes, and support the growth of the sector. But there are many different sectors growing as well, and I think it is difficult to target it specifically. MSF is looking at various initiatives to expand this because we do recognise that there is a real need. We intend to make sure that schemes are available to train manpower. As to whether we can meet the demands, I think that is a broader issue that can be dealt with separately.