PROJECTIONS OF TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS

PROJECTIONS OF TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS: 15.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Trade and Industry, in light of the many projects that are presently in the pipeline, such as the Integrated Resorts and transportation projects, what are the projections on the types of technical and engineering personnel required for manufacturing, construction and research and development in Singapore.

The Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Lim Hng Kiang): Mr Speaker, Sir, the requirements for technical and engineering manpower differ from sector to sector. In the manufacturing and info-comms sector, the Economic Development Board (EDB) has projected that about 34,000 new engineering, technical and supervisory jobs would be required over the next four years, from 2007 to 2010.

As we seek to transform Singapore into a research and innovation-driven

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economy by intensifying our national R&D spending to 3% of GDP by 2010, we estimate that an additional 10,000 research scientists and engineers at the Bachelors, Masters and PhD levels would be required to support the higher R&D expenditure.

In the construction sector, with the many major developments, like the two Integrated Resorts, Business and Financial Centre, and Sports Hub coming on-stream, the Building Construction Authority (BCA) has projected a requirement of up to 10,000 additional engineering, technical and supervisory personnel over the next four years.

MTI and our economic agencies work closely with the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Education to translate these manpower demand projections for the key growth sectors into student recruitment numbers for the different educational institutions, namely, the universities, the polytechnics and the Institutes of Technical Education. These institutions produce, on average, a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering and technical manpower each year to meet the industry's demand.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: Sir, I would like to ask the Minister whether we have the resources and capacity to train our manpower in these areas to meet the growing demands. In some skill sets, there is a global shortage, such as for environmental engineers, construction engineers and process engineers. How can Singapore compete for these resources?

Mr Lim Hng Kiang: Mr Speaker, Sir, as I mentioned in my answer, we are already producing 30,000 engineering and technical manpower each year. So this is more than sufficient for the projected numbers that I outlined earlier. But we do recognise that there is a lot of seepage.

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Many people are trained in this science and technical area but they do not continue careers in this area. So we have always to continuously adjust our output projections to actual demands, depending on how the industry develops.