Creation of Value-added Jobs for Singaporeans

Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether the Ministry has set any specific number of high value-added jobs to secure for Singaporeans per year for the past 10 years; (b) if so, what has been the achievement so far and what will be the number that the Ministry has set to achieve for the next five years.

The Second Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr S Iswaran) (for the Minister for Trade and Industry): Mr Speaker Sir, MTI and our agencies promote and develop high value-add activities across the various industries in the manufacturing and services sectors. Our aim is to bring good job opportunities to Singaporeans, and to equip our local workers with the necessary skills to seize these opportunities.

For our key clusters, we work with various agencies – Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Workforce Development Agency (WDA) – to develop the manpower and skills needed for our industries. First, we work with MOE and MOM to align the curriculum in local educational institutions with industry needs so that young job-seekers graduate with skills that are in demand. Second, we work with MOM and WDA to put in place training programmes so that our workers can continuously upgrade their skills and take on higher skilled and higher-paying jobs. Third, we work with companies and co-fund efforts, such as training schemes and attachment programmes, to ensure the transfer of knowledge and expertise to locals, particularly in new sectors and industries where our workers may not initially have the relevant industry experience.

For new clusters that require specialised skills for which we do not have sufficient local manpower supply, foreign talent help fill the gap and facilitate the transfer of skills to locals as we build up the capability in our local workforce over time.

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We do not set specific targets for new jobs for Singaporeans. It would be too prescriptive and inefficient to do so. However, we do set overall skilled job creation targets for key clusters. For instance, in 2012, Economic Development Board (EDB) expects to create between 18,000 and 21,000 skilled jobs. Likewise, Info-Communications Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) also sets skilled job targets for the Infocomm sector. As part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 Masterpan, IDA plans to boost the number of infocomm jobs by 55,000 from 2005 to 2015. This approach has worked well in helping Singaporeans secure the good job opportunities created in the economy.

At the national level, in 2011, more than 75% of the Professional, Managerial, Executive and Technical (PMET) jobs, were taken up by local workers. The investments brought in by EDB between 2002 and 2011 would have created 167,300 skilled jobs when the projects are fully implemented, and the majority of these jobs will go to locals. Based on the Census of Manufacturing Activity, more than seven in 10 skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector are filled by locals.

Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Pasir Ris-Punggol): May I ask the Minister whether he could share, presently, which sector has produced the highest value-added job in Singapore?

Mr S Iswaran: Mr Speaker, Sir, in general, I would say that our overall economic strategy is to move towards higher value-added activities, across all sectors. So, even within sectors where we historically perhaps may have been doing some lower value-added activities, EDB's efforts and, in general, the MTI agencies' efforts, have moved us up the value chain to higher value-added activities.

If I take electronics as an example, there used to be electronic contract manufacturing, large scale, low margin, high volume kind of businesses. Over time, these have been phased out, but instead, we have higher value-added activities in the same sector. That includes micro-chip design, product design, semi-conductor activities, and so on. I would say that as a broad rule, we are moving in the direction of higher value-added activities across all sectors. Some of the newer sectors we have targeted, such as biomedical sciences, are examples of areas where there are also opportunities to be had in terms of high value-added jobs.

The reason I gave the preamble is to emphasise that it is not just in the new sectors, but even in our existing sectors, there is hope to create good, high value-added jobs for Singaporeans.