Structural Unemployment Risks for Singaporean PMETs Aged 40s and 50s

4 Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what assessment the Government has made of structural unemployment risks facing Singaporean professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs) in their 40s and 50s; and (b) whether the Ministry will consider further strengthening current measures to support re-employment, mid-career transitions and wage sustainability for this group; and (b) if so, what measures.

The Senior Minister of State for Manpower (Dr Koh Poh Koon) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, the long-term unemployment rate for resident professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in their 40s and 50s remained within the range observed during non-recessionary periods, indicating that structural unemployment risks remain low and stable.

However, rapid technological change and shifts in the external economic environment mean that our workers should regularly upskill to stay up-to-date with industry needs and remain open to new opportunities. This could be more challenging for mature workers. The Government has hence been strengthening measures to support this group to strengthen their career resilience and to manage career transitions.

We have invested strongly in developing our local workforce and several of our programmes offer a higher level of support for mature workers. For example, Workforce Singapore's (WSG's) Mid-Career Pathways Programme and SkillsFuture Singapore's (SSG's) SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme support mid-career jobseekers to acquire industry relevant experience and skills to facilitate career transitions, while WSG’s Career Conversion Programmes provide employers with more salary support to reskill mature workers into growth job roles with good longer-term prospects. Those who require a more substantive skills reboot can tap on SSG’s SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme. In total, we have invested over $10 billion over the last five years on local workforce initiatives to help our workers upskill and remain competitive.

In order to improve access to new opportunities, we need to go more upstream. Workers need to take charge of their career health and take proactive steps to improve their employability. To support them to navigate the labour market and make longer-term career plans, we have introduced digital tools and services, such as the Careers and Skills Passport, CareersFinder and career guidance programmes.

The Tripartite Workgroup on Senior Employment is studying recommendations to provide better support across a senior's career journey, including during mid-career transitions and later-career stages. Its recommendations will be released in the second half of this year.

Mr Speaker: Mr Christopher de Souza.

Mr Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah): I thank the good Senior Minister of State for the comprehensive reply. My supplementary question, Sir, is born out of what I think is a perceived gap where professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), in particular, engineers and information technology (IT) people, have given me feedback on my home visits and Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS) that they are finding it extremely difficult to find alternative jobs. So, I am wondering whether we can look beyond the SkillsFuture. That is my first supplementary question.

The second supplementary question is, to look at mentorship programmes and lateral hires within the industry; that is my second supplementary question.

And a third supplementary question, which brings it altogether, is the experience that I have with the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU). And in the FDAWU, we care for hotels, food and beverage (F&B), retail and restaurants. And, if there is any dip in employment in one sector, then it is a very natural shift to go into another sector, because a person who has worked in a restaurant can then work in a hotel restaurant. So, are we looking at creating tight labour markets within the IT and engineering sectors, such that if there is retrenchment, there can be lateral movements within, for example, union membership, where the unions represent multiple related industries. I appreciate the good work that Senior Minister of State and his team are doing, but I am just here trying to propose positive steps to plug the gap where the IT and the engineering sector is concerned. And this is born out of my home visits.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sir, can I perhaps ask the Member to repeat his second question again, because I did not quite catch the gist of it.

Mr Christopher de Souza: The first supplementary question has to do with plugging the gaps. The second supplementary question has to do with lateral movements within one union structure. So, if a union represents multiple industries that are actually related, and I think engineering and IT are quite related, can we create a tight labour market within that union structure, so that we have lateral employment opportunities given? And it is arising out of my experience working closely with the FDAWU.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, I thank the Member for his clarifications and questions. On his first point, whether we can go beyond what SkillsFuture currently does to support PMETs, especially as the Member mentioned, in the engineering and IT sectors, where they may face some challenges. Indeed, that is one of the streams of work that the Tripartite Workgroup for Senior Employment is looking at. As I mentioned in my main reply, we are trying to go more upstream to prevent even a displacement from a job. So, how can we help our professionals, even while they are still in employment, to try and understand better where they can pivot to, should there be a shift in the industry sector; and helping to guide them in that skills acquisition in the looking out for opportunities and help them to navigate the kind of challenges that they may need to do in this transitional process?

So, going upstream, even to the age of 40s, for example, rather than wait till they are near retirement, or when they are retrenched. Because at this stage when they are in their 40s there could be some early skills obsolescence in the midst of this rapid economic change and disruptive technologies. So, we believe that if we go upstream, we can do more preventive measures to help them to remain relevant for a longer period of time. So, indeed, going beyond just acquiring skills, how can we build a better career and employment ecosystem to better support them?

Currently, we see that for more higher-end PMEs who are, perhaps, usually head-hunted – rather than they go and apply for a job, people come looking for them. So, we are thinking about whether some of these services can be something that can be more broadly available for PMEs who may want to avail themselves to other opportunities, even while they are still in employment. And that can apply to many other sectors, not just in engineering and IT. So, that stream of work will continue to see how we can go beyond SkillsFuture, as it currently is today.

On the second question of whether we can facilitate more lateral movements across sectors, the Member looked at it from the union perspective, and in fact, actually, in NTUC, that has been a practice of helping workers who may potentially be displaced from one union sector to reach across other unions in the adjacent sector, and then facilitate their movements through an internal arrangement, because the unions in two different sectors may have more awareness of where the opportunities are. And that is what the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) has been doing all this while, something that we will continue to support and encourage as well.

But on the aspect of just trying to facilitate that, I do not think keeping a tight labour market per se, is perhaps, the most appropriate tool to do that. The labour market is tight not because we want to facilitate lateral movements, but it is tight because we have resource constraints in Singapore. But despite that tightness, I think the key thing is to make sure that there is more awareness amongst the workers themselves where opportunities may lie in adjacent sectors and have a system to help them gain the necessary skills so they can pivot across. That would be something that we hope to also do, through injecting a lot more support and services in some of our career employment services that we are thinking about, so that, as an ecosystem, we have a more comprehensive way to help – whether they are engineers, IT professionals or PMEs in different sectors as well, to be able to pivot across when opportunities arise.

So, I hope that gives the Member a sense of what we are doing at the national level, but also in conjunction with what the union is doing already on the ground.