By Ramesh Subbaraman
Striving for a better economy, better workforce and better budget for years to come – and the way to achieve these is to break bottlenecks to grow the economy and embrace the concept of ‘futurisation’, said NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Lim Swee Say at the recent Budget debate.
SG Lim explained: “We can only do more good for our people if we have more resources, and this can best come about if we keep growing our economy and employment too so that we will not end up becoming a welfare state.
“To succeed we have to keep progressing from once stage of development to the next. Along the way we will be confronted with new bottlenecks and we have to find ways to break them.”
Embracing ‘Futurisation’
Singapore has progressed from modernisation to globalisation, and now, in SG Lim’s words, the next wave to ride is that of ’futurisation’.
“Do not wait for the future to come to us, we have to go to the future, ahead of our competition,” said SG Lim.
Enlarge Capacity for Future Growth
According to him, with low unemployment and high employment rates, workforce growth has slowed. To meet this challenge, there is an urgent need to ramp up labour productivity.
“More of our growth in future capacity will have to come from growth in labour productivity and innovation. If productivity growth remains low or negative, we could end up with low growth or even economic stagnation due to this lack of capacity.
“When that happens, wages will go down, unemployment will go up, re-employment will drop. There will be less or no budget surplus and it will be for us to do more good for our people. I am sure we don’t want this to happen and we must find ways to break this economic capacity bottleneck,” said SG Lim.
2/3 + 1/3 Must Be Greater Than 1
Next on the list is to optimise the full potential of the Singapore workforce, which is made up of 2/3 of local manpower and 1/3 of foreign manpower.
The SkillsFuture initiatives such as Earn and Learn is very much welcomed by the Labour Movement.
“We believe that through such programmes we can help many new job entrants to move into new industries and take on new careers without being hampered by their academic qualifications or lack of working experience,” said SG Lim.
He called on the tripartite partners to create more career opportunities in every major job sectors to build a strong Singaporean core while tapping on the expertise and availability of foreign manpower. In this way, we can grow the economic pie bigger for the benefits of all collars, all ages and all nationalities of workers here.
Tomorrow’s opportunities
SG Lim also urged Singaporeans to break away from the past and venture into the future.
His advice – don’t live with the problems of today by chasing the sunset but turn the challenges of today into opportunities of tomorrow.
At the start of his speech at the Budget debate, SG Lim told the House that his Budget speech this year will be his last in his capacity as the Secretary-General of the NTUC.
SG Lim, who turns 62 in July next year, will be stepping down from the NTUC Central Committee during its National Delegates Conference later this year.
Source: NTUC This Week
