SECTORS FACING SHORTAGE OF WORKERS

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether there are sectors currently facing a shortage of workers and, if so, which are the sectors; and (b) how Singaporean workers can be given assistance to qualify for jobs in these sectors.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Speaker, Sir, the employment situation, as I have just mentioned earlier, has deteriorated over the past few months due to the economic downturn. The construction and manufacturing sectors have been badly hit, with net employment declining by 2,160 and 1,075 respectively, in the first quarter of this year. In contrast, the services sector has continued to register positive employment growth of 28,200 over the same period. Job vacancies were highest in the transport, storage and communication industries, which saw nearly 3,000 job openings in the first quarter of this year. Other services industries such as financial services, wholesale and retail trade also had high job vacancies.

While the situation may have worsened since then, there are still job opportunities. According to industry feedback in recent months, there continue to be job vacancies in the services sector. For instance, there is a shortage of housekeepers, receptionists, waiters/waitresses and cooks in the hotel and restaurant sector; ambulance attendants, healthcare assistants in the healthcare sector; and childcare assistants in the education sector. The transport and logistics sector is also hiring vehicle mechanics and warehouse assistants.

We are still facing a shortage of nurses, pharmacists, radiographers in the healthcare sector; and administrative support staff in the education sector. There are also vacancies for network analysts and software developers in the infocomm sector; actuaries and underwriters in the finance sector; and engineers and technicians in the pharmaceutical and aerospace industries.

While manufacturing industries such as the electronics industry are cutting jobs, there are still jobs available in the services sector. However, the skill sets required in the services sector may be different. To help our older and lower skilled retrenched workers make the switch to new jobs, we started a pilot programme called the 'People for Jobs' Traineeship Programme in June this year. This is like an apprentice programme for mid-career workers. Under this programme, my Ministry provides financial support of up to $3.80 per hour or $600 per month for 3 months for companies which employ the older retrenched workers. This will encourage employers to recruit retrenched workers and ease their transition to a new industry and work environment. To date, more than 30 companies from various industries like the hotel, retail, security service sectors have already signed on with this programme. They have made available 1,000 vacancies for room attendants, sales assistants, cashiers, security officers and others.

In addition, to help Singaporeans better qualify for the available positions, my Ministry works closely with relevant organisations to enhance the short and long term re-employment prospects of retrenched workers through training. For instance, under the sponsorship of surrogate employers such as the NTUC and self-help groups, retrenched Singaporeans can benefit from Skills Redevelopment Programme training. To encourage these surrogate employers to reach out to more workers, from 1st August 2001, the Skills Development Fund will increase its course fee support for trainees aged 40 and above under the surrogate employer scheme from 80% to 100%. As for trainees below 40 years old, my Ministry will provide a separate grant from the Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund to surrogate employers to help offset part of their cost.

These measures will equip displaced workers with the right skills for available jobs. We will also supplement training efforts with employment assistance to match individuals with jobs. The Career Centre at my Ministry, CareerLink@mom, provides free employment assistance services to Singaporeans. From this month, my Ministry will also be starting a series of community based job fairs to bring together job seekers and employers. We target to organise an average of one job fair per month for the rest of the year.

The Government will do its best to help retrenched workers transit to new jobs in new industries that require different skills. However, we urge retrenched workers to be flexible and adaptable, and make the necessary adjustments to take on these jobs, such as accepting shift work and even working occasionally on weekends.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that the quality of our services sector could be further improved compared to many countries, especially the consumer services? May I also ask the Minister whether now is the opportune time to address this issue and how would his Ministry address this issue?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Speaker, Sir, I cannot say that my Ministry is an expert on the quality of service in the retail sector. But we have seen reports or comments where people have felt that the quality of service of the retail sector personnel needs further improvement. If we look at the experience of some other countries, I remember in the middle of the 80s, Hong Kong underwent a severe economic downturn. Prior to that, Hong Kong had a rather poor reputation for service quality but, as a result of the economic downturn, there was a dramatic transformation. Hong Kong's retail sector, in particular, and the services sector, in general, made a really dramatic improvement in the quality of service that they were offering.

Perhaps, in the same way, with this downturn and the loosening of the labour market where jobs do not easily come by, people who move into the services sector should make a greater effort to provide better service to ensure that they can hold on to their jobs and, in general, that will help to raise the quality of service. At the same time, training will also make a difference. That is why in our programme like `People for Jobs' Traineeship Programme, one of the key factors is to require the employer to provide proper training for the new recruits and part of this training will include providing better service quality.

We are also providing community-based CREST training modules. These are basic learning-to-learn skills which can help workers to better understand how to relate to customers' requirements and how to improve the service quality that they have to provide. In fact, there are several programmes that will help to enhance the skills and service quality of our retail and services sectors.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang: Sir, it may be more difficult for us to shift the existing manufacturing workers to jobs in the healthcare sector like nursing and administrative support staff in MOE. But I think it is easier for us to consider helping the manufacturing workers to move to jobs in the hotel and transport sectors. Would the Ministry consider some concrete plans or conversion programme to help these workers and, more importantly, to assist the employers so that they will also change their mindset to accept these older workers from the manufacturing sector?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Sir, the `People for Jobs' Traineeship Programme will in fact address the concern raised by the Member. Those who are shifting from the manufacturing sector into jobs, whether it is in the transport, warehousing or services sector, will receive some training by the employers who will also receive Government support of up to $600 per month for the first three months of the worker's employment. This will help them to overcome the initial difficulties.

As to whether the jobs in the healthcare sector are suitable for those in the manufacturing sector to be redeployed to, there are some jobs in the healthcare sector that require almost professional qualifications and I understand it will not be easy for people to shift over to these jobs. But there are also jobs in the healthcare sector, for instance, nursing assistants or nursing aides who help in the general running of providing basic services in the hospitals, which can be taken but, of course, with some form of training, because it is a totally different working environment and the requirements are quite different. But we are prepared to help employers who are ready to recruit the displaced workers from the manufacturing sector and to put them into these jobs in the healthcare sector.

Mr Simon S. C. Tay (Nominated Member): Sir, may I ask the Minister three questions. The first is, while I commend these extra efforts, may I enquire how much this would cost. The second question is: are there targets? How effective do we hope to be in creating the number of jobs that we hope to create or match? And thirdly, can I ask the Minister if there will be a special effort to target or differentiate the higher educated, the white-collar and managerial people who will lose jobs?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Speaker, Sir, we set out with a modest budget to start off as a pilot project for these people for a jobs programme in June this year. But since the situation has got worse since then, we are prepared to raise the budget and, as my colleague, the Minister for Trade and Industry, said on 25th July when he announced the package of measures, the Government is prepared to put in as much financial resources as necessary to keep this programme running as long as there are takers from the employers and there are workers who are prepared to make the effort to acquire the new skills to work in the jobs that are available.

How effective? We will measure the effectiveness at the end of the day by the rate at which we can redeploy the displaced workers from the manufacturing sector into the services sector. In a way, it is to avoid increasing the degree of structural unemployment among our workforce, because if we do not succeed in making this redeployment, and knowing that many of the manufacturing sector's low-skilled jobs are unlikely to return even if the economy turns around, we may well be saddled with a very high level of structural unemployment. So at the end of the day, we can measure how effective our programmes are if we are able to keep structural unemployment as low as possible.

On the question about special efforts to differentiate the higher skilled workers, as I mentioned in my main reply, there are also jobs for the higher skilled workers that are available today in the infocomm sector. For instance, in the healthcare sector, there are also jobs for professionals. As I have also mentioned previously, for most of the higher educated, it is not so much a question of further skills upgrading, because they are already highly skilled, highly educated individuals. So they may be far more adaptable to take on different kinds of jobs with different requirements. Their job skills may not perfectly fit what is available now. Nevertheless, we are prepared to help them acquire a set of skills that can help them in taking on the new jobs, and I refer specifically to a programme that we launched in 1999. This is called the Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme. This is a programme that will reach out to the better educated who need to acquire a different set of job skills, eg, those who are already degree or diploma holders but do not have sufficient expertise in the infocomm sector. And this is one sector that is still generating job vacancies and looking for people.

So we are prepared to help them undergo a short period of training to acquire the infocomm skills, then they can go into these jobs. We have extended the programme from infocomm to e-learning and we will be looking at other areas where we can likewise provide a similar conversion training for the better educated so that they can take on the available jobs.