Criteria Used for Occupations Placed on Non-Traditional Sources Occupation List

4 Mr Sharael Taha asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what are the criteria for occupations to be placed on the Non-Traditional Sources (NTS) Occupation List; and (b) how often will the list be reviewed.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Tan See Leng): Mr Deputy Speaker, the seven occupations on the Non-Traditional Source (NTS) Occupation List were carefully selected in consultation with sector agencies. We evaluated occupations with a significant number of S Pass holders who may be affected by the upcoming changes in the S Pass framework. We also assessed the number of locals in these occupations as well as the local employment outcomes.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will work closely with sector agencies to engage the industries as well as our tripartite partners to review the list every three years. We are open to reviewing it more regularly, keeping in mind, above all, the need to uplift our lower-wage workers and also to spur industry transformation to become less reliant on lower-skilled foreign workers.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Sharael Taha.

Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Punggol): I would like to thank the Minister for his reply. I would like to declare my interests one of the 22,000 employees in the aerospace industry.

I acknowledge that the NTS occupational list includes occupations across several Industries, including F&B and manufacturing. However, the list does not include support workers in the aerospace industry. The aerospace industry is recovering and ramping up again after three years of very challenging times during the pandemic years. The industry has already focused on automation, lean management and invested heavily in R&D to enhance productivity.

While the industry has also worked very closely with Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and agencies like Workforce Singapore (WSG) to redesign jobs to attract locals to the industry, however, the aerospace industry is still facing difficulties in finding manpower to support its recovery and growth, particularly in supporting roles that complement the value-added jobs that our Singaporean local workforce is already doing.

While efforts are made to redesign jobs for locals to focus on the value-added roles such as inspectors, lead technicians, technical specialists, there is still a need for more workers in supporting and complementary roles such as machinists, blasting or chemical line operators or fitters.

Can MOM consider such specific supporting and complementary roles in the aerospace industry to be placed in the NTS occupation list, especially at the time when the industry is trying to recover and grow in a competitive global maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) market amidst a tight labour market?

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the hon Member for his feedback. In short, the answer to his suggestion is yes, we will certainly take his feedback back to MOM as well as work with the different sector agencies to consider and to review.

But I think it is important, as I have mentioned earlier in my response, to note that we will continue to refine the NTS OL framework. And we have to also be mindful in terms of balancing our longer-term objective to spur industry transformation towards productivity-led and manpower-lean growth, so that we can also make sure that we nuance to build a fit local employment outcome as well as the industries' manpower needs.

For the aerospace industry, it is indeed a growing space and it is also quite sector-specific and also quite specialised. I would request for the Member and encourage the Member to also engage the Economic Development Board (EDB) and EDB would then work with MOM.

The other point is that for firms, like what the hon Member has shared, if they are able to do ambitious investments, they have ambitious innovation and also broadly increased internationalisation activities, they can also tap on the Manpower for Strategic Economic Priorities (M-SEP) scheme which is administered by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and we will certainly consider giving them time-bound flexibility to help all of these firms seize new opportunities. I hope that addresses the Member's question.