CREATION OF NEW JOBS THROUGH NEW INVESTMENTS

Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed asked the Minister for Manpower what types of new jobs will be created through new investments and whether they will match the many workers that are expected to be retrenched this year.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: New jobs created through new investments will generally not match jobs lost. This is to be expected as the new jobs tend to be of higher value added requiring higher level of skills. Majority of jobs lost are in labour intensive low skill areas.

The new investments coming on stream include wafer fab, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, telecommunications and electronics for the manufacturing sector, sizeable public projects in the construction sector, as well as investments in manufacturing-related services such as logistics and IT. The $8.5 billion fixed asset investments committed in the manufacturing sector last year was expected to generate close to 20,000 new high value added jobs over the next few years. Overall, we expect job creation to be relatively stronger in manufacturing, construction, communications, and weaker in the commerce, business and financial services.

In terms of skill level, feedback and surveys conducted by economic agencies show that the majority of new investments require skilled workers with minimum NTC II certification. For example, companies are still looking for workers with NTC certification in mechanical servicing, precision engineering and avionics in the engineering area; wafer fab, instrumentation and computer technology in the electronics area; process operation and control in the petrochemical area. At a higher skill level, demand for technical and specialised skills remains sizeable. The estimated demand included more than 2,000 engineers, 2,000 diploma holders and 3,000 NTC II holders this year.

However, in view of the demand for higher skills and qualifications in the new jobs, we are faced with a real danger of structural unemployment or job mismatch. Hence the urgency for re-training and skill upgrading especially for the older workers.