By Ramesh Subbaraman
Singapore’s Parliament kicks off the annual Budget session on 3 March 2015, with close to 60 Members of Parliament, including those from the Labour Movement, taking part in the debate.
NTUC’s Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) Heng Chee How called on the Government to press on with and redouble efforts to create ‘Ageless Jobs’ and ‘Evergreen Workers’.
“This is the surest and ultimately the only way we can make best use of our potential as a nation and a people, and create that ‘Better Future’ that we all hope for,” he said in his speech, supporting Budget 2015.
NTUC’s Wish List
DSG Heng noted that the Labour Movement has been advocating for the strengthening of mature workers’ CPF savings through higher employer contributions, equal contribution rates at least for workers up to age 55, and to further improve on CPF interest rates and contribution ceiling.
NTUC has also called for the Government to take steps to strengthen the incentive for employers to keep employing workers even beyond age 65.
The Labour Movement is happy and grateful that the Government has responded positively and substantively on all these fronts.
However, there are two areas that require tripartite partners to keep pressing, with one of them being labour productivity.
Labour Productivity Negative
For the period 2007~2014, labour productivity was negative for 5 of the 8 years.
NTUC’s is concerned that such prolonged negative labour productivity will inevitably drag down real wage growth and constrain improvements in the standard of living.
“As real wages are what ultimately matters to workers, the Labour Movement wants to see a turnaround of this pattern as soon as possible,” emphasised DSG Heng.
DSG Heng called on the Government and industry partners to increase efforts and resources to spur Job and Process Redesign across the different industries.
“To the extent that we are not doing enough of job and process redesign, and not putting enough focus and effort in investing in our workers of all profiles to make them evergreen, we are in effect slowing the growth of our value-add down unnecessarily. That would be an own goal that we score against ourselves,” cautioned DSG Heng.
Support for SkillsFuture
The next challenge is to continue nurturing ‘Evergreen Workers’, and DSG Heng said he is in full support of SkillsFuture,
NTUC also welcomed the Budget measures to subsidise training for workers 40 years and older at 90% and empower initiatives by workers to help upgrade themselves through the SkillsFuture Credit individual training accounts.
The Labour Movement called on all employers and the HR profession to play their part, especially given the strong funding by the Government and to continue to invest in the training and updating of their mature workers as a key and lasting part of their total workforce.
Source: NTUC This Week
