CAREERS IN CONSTRUCTION, HOSPITALITY AND LEISURE SECTORS

CAREERS IN CONSTRUCTION, HOSPITALITY AND LEISURE SECTORS: 10.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Manpower in view of the Integrated Resort, the spin-off industries as well as the facelift and construction work to be carried out along Orchard Road (a) will there be enough Singaporeans to take up careers in the construction, hospitality and leisure sectors; and (b) what programmes are in place to ensure that there are enough Singaporeans to work in these sectors.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Gan Kim Yong) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, Sir, tourism employment grew by an average of 6.6% per year, from 157,000 in 2004 to 180,000 in 2007. Some 50,000 to 60,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the tourism industry over the next three years. There will be many good job opportunities, ranging from rank-and-file workers to chefs to executives and managers, for Singaporeans who wish to work in the tourism industry. Our first priority will be to help Singaporeans take advantage of these opportunities in the tourism industry and, where there is still insufficient manpower for the industry's needs, we will then supplement with foreign workers.

Thus, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) have rolled out the TOurism TALent (TOTAL) Plan which aims to train and upgrade 74,000 Singaporeans and enhance the professionalism of the tourism industry at a cost of over $360 million.

There are various initiatives under the TOTAL Plan to build up the pipeline of Singaporeans to take on jobs in the tourism industry. One example is the Certified Service Professional Programme (CSP). The programme prepares workers to enter a broad range of service-related jobs, such as retail assistants, tour hosts, etc. CSP will be launched later this year, to train 36,000 non-tourism workers to facilitate them entering the tourism industry in the next three years.

WDA also targets to train 15,000 workers with specialised skills through its Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework and other training programmes for jobs, such as chefs, ride technicians and tour hosts. For existing tourism workers, WDA aims to train and upgrade 11,000 workers, with special focus on training at the managerial and supervisory levels.

To build up the competencies of senior executives in the industry, STB launched its Training Industry Professionals in Tourism (TIP-iT) scheme last year. The scheme aims to train 3,000 senior executives over the next three years.

Another strategy is to recruit from fresh school leavers. To facilitate this, STB has been working with post-secondary education institutions to introduce new courses and increase the student intake in tourism-related disciplines. About 6,000 students will be trained in these disciplines and primed to join the tourism industry in the next three years. STB and WDA also extend various scholarship programmes for tourism-related courses.

To make tourism jobs more attractive to Singaporeans, we will also work with the industry to re-design existing jobs, improve HR/workplace practices and enhance industry image. About 3,000 tourism jobs are targeted to be re-designed. In October 2007, STB launched a three-year campaign aimed at enhancing the attractiveness of tourism careers.

As for the construction sector, although many of the jobs at the worker level will be filled by foreign workers, there are available pathways for locals to take on higher skilled jobs in the sector. One such programme is the Construction Re-Skilling for Employment (CORE) programme which helps to re-skill job seekers with no prior work experience in the construction industry to take up trade foreman or crane operator jobs.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: Thank you, Minister of State, for the very encouraging response.

Sir, I would like to ask two supplementary questions. These relate to today's papers which reported that there were only about 9,000 persons graduating to fill the potential job openings in the tourism sector. Given the fact that we still have to build up the pipeline of Singaporeans and that we may eventually have to look to the foreigners to bring in the service staff, especially for the IR sector, I would like to check with MOS:

(1) How would that process of bringing in the foreign service staff be carried out?

(2) How do we ensure the quality control, given the experience of the less than desired quality standard of foreign construction workers that have been brought in recently by foreign contractors?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, Sir, as I mentioned in my answer, while we look at foreign sources of workers, at the same time we also encourage Singaporeans to take on tourism-related service jobs, and we have put in place quite extensive programmes to train and upgrade them as well as to encourage existing tourism-related workers to take on bigger and better jobs and upgrade themselves.

As for foreign workers, we have a fairly comprehensive system of work passes and control systems in place to ensure quality foreign workers are admitted. We are also working very closely with the key players in the industry to try to understand their needs better and to work with them to look at how to fulfill their manpower needs. So I would assure the Member that we are working very proactively with the industry to address the manpower needs of the industry, going forward.

Er Lee Bee Wah: Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask MOS what is the take-up rate of the Skills Retraining Scheme that he mentioned just now for the construction industry. Based on the feedback from contractors, engineers and architects, there is an acute shortage of manpower in the construction industry. Does MOM intend to do more to help to ease the manpower shortage problem? Would MOM consider relaxing the S-Pass requirements and reducing the processing time? Would MOM also help to bring in more construction-related professionals from overseas?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, Sir, some of the programmes I mentioned earlier, such as the tourism-related programmes, were just started last year. So it will take time for some of the programmes to take off, for enrolments to increase. Specifically, on the construction sector, the CORE programme that I mentioned in my answer earlier, in 2007, a total of 245 workers were trained through the CORE programme. We recognise that this is a very tight labour market at the moment and there is a great demand for workers. This is a problem and a challenge that we recognise. But it is a good challenge and problem to address. As I mentioned, we will continue to work with various industry players, including the developers and the construction sector, to address and look at how we could be more flexible in our manpower policy. Flexibility in our manpower policy has been one key strategy and strength of our economy to allow us to respond to the changing landscape in our economy and the ups and downs in the demand as well as the economic cycle.

So, I agree with the Member that we will address this issue and try our level best to improve our processing time for Work-Pass applications which at the moment is already quite efficient. We will continue to improve our efficiency and look at how to remain flexible and responsive to industry needs.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang (Aljunied): Sir, there is actually a need for us to have foreign manpower to supplement our manpower here in Singapore. Would the Minister of State assure us that we will not just freely accede to the employers' requests whenever they use the reason "no takers" as an excuse, that we then free up the market so much that they just take in all the foreign manpower to take away the jobs of Singaporeans?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am glad that the Member recognises that foreign workers play an important role in our economy. In fact, they provide the engine for us to continue to fuel our economic growth, particularly so as we approach a very high employment rate already. Our employment rate exceeded 75% in 2007. As we reach the limit, there will be fewer and fewer Singaporeans who are not yet working and are ready to enter the workforce. Therefore, looking at the foreign worker supply is an important issue for us to address. Of course, in admitting foreign workers, we are very mindful to strike a very delicate balance to ensure that these foreign workers will help us to continue to raise our economic growth and at the same time to also create new and better jobs for Singaporeans.