INTEGRATED RESORTS (Jobs for Singaporeans)

Column:573

INTEGRATED RESORTS:

(Jobs for Singaporeans): 3.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan asked the Minister for Manpower (a) if his Ministry will be looking into ways to ensure that the maximum number of jobs created from the two Integrated Resorts will go to Singaporeans and permanent residents as is reported to be the case for the Hong Kong Disneyland project; and (b) if so, what will be the possible approaches that his Ministry will be adopting to encourage this outcome.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Ng Eng Hen): Mr Speaker, Sir, when the two Integrated Resorts (IRs) are in full operation, they will have significant economic spillover to the rest of the economy. Based on the Request for

Column: 574

Concept (RFC) proposals and studies on projects of similar scale abroad, MTI expects that about 10,000 jobs would be created within the two IRs. Most of these jobs would be in the non-gaming areas such as food and beverage, retail, and accommodation.

MTI expects that the IRs will also create 25,000 jobs in the rest of the economy, mostly in services industries such as hotels, retail, food and beverage, entertainment, travel and transportation. As the vast majority of the jobs in the services sectors are done by locals, we expect that this will continue for the jobs created and supported by the IRs.

We will seek to maximise for Singaporeans every job opportunity that comes with the IRs. MOM and the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) will work with MTI and the Singapore Tourism Board, the training institutions as well as the successful developers of the two IRs, to train and equip Singaporeans with the skills required for occupations within the IRs. WDA has already been training Singaporeans for jobs in the tourism related services sectors, such as retail, hotels and restaurants. But this effort will need to be extended to equip Singaporeans with a stronger "software" for service excellence.

Therefore, in tandem with preparing our workers to take up jobs in the IRs, an inter-Ministry team involving MOM/WDA, MTI and relevant agencies, will also look at the broader issue of improving Singapore's service culture in order to enhance the competitiveness of our services industries and our attractiveness as a tourist destination.

The Member alluded to Hong Kong Disneyland. As with Hong Kong Disneyland, there will be skills gaps in our local workforce for which the IRs would need to augment with foreigners who have the specific skills. In such cases,

Column: 575

the IRs, like all other companies in the services sectors, would have to comply with the prevailing foreign worker employment policies and quotas.

Under our current foreign worker employment policies, for every 100 jobs within the service sector (excluding foreign domestic workers), 89 are performed by locals. In other words, the foreign worker dependency is only about 10%. Therefore, if we can enhance our attractions and increase the number of tourists, we can expect that the overwhelming majority of jobs will go to Singaporeans.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan (Hong Kah): Sir, I would like to ask the Minister three supplementary questions. In relation to the 10,000 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs, I am pleased to note that the Minister has said that an inter-Ministry committee will be set up to look at service standards. I would like to ask the Minister if, in considering the upgrading of service standards, the Ministry would dedicate some funds to such programmes to improve the service quality gap in view of the fact that the World Economic Forum's service ranking has ranked Singapore 21st, which means that it has dropped by 10 positions from the last ranking.

I would also like to ask the Minister if the Ministry would liaise with the successful tenderer to find out the type of workers that are needed in order to develop training programmes that will better prepare Singaporeans for the jobs.

My final question is whether the Ministry will also be discussing or is already in discussion with the ITEs, SHATEC, polytechnics and universities on the relevant courses that they can offer, so that these courses will be effective and

Column:576

relevant in the training of the needed workers because some polytechnics, I note, have already started courses.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: Sir, the short answer to all three questions is yes. Let me briefly elaborate on what the Member has asked.

We thank her for her comments and fundamentally we agree that, taken at a broad level, we can upgrade our service culture. I said that we lack the service DNA but, as a scientist and a biologist, I would tell you that we can do many experiments to incorporate the DNA that we need. That is what we need to do. We will have to ramp up our attention to this broader aspect. In other words, while the building of IRs and other tourist attractions that we will need to focus on in the coming years will be the necessary condition, it may be insufficient if we do not follow it up with helping tourists leave Singapore with a positive impression of the Singapore experience.

Yes, we will have to engage, as the Member has said, our training providers at the ITEs, polytechnics and the various service providers in the many areas of tourism hospitality. This is the focus of the inter-Ministry team involving staff members to look into these issues.

We will also identify skill gaps and specific occupations. But on that point, let me just reiterate what the Secretary-General of NTUC and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Mr Lim Boon Heng, had nicely recounted. If you think about it, NTUC actually runs an IR already. It has Downtown East and it has many social clubs which are supported really in part by the jackpot room. The staff within the gaming component is less than 10% of all the other staff that the jobs provide, in other words, the rides and social amenities. So a similar concept will apply

Column: 577

to IRs, in other words, the many jobs that it will bring will be in food and beverage, entertainment and tourist industries, and these are the areas that we can ramp up. So, yes, we will pay special attention to these areas in preparation for the integrated resorts.