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Mr. Speaker,
Thank you for allowing me to join this debate.
I noted the fact that Finance Minister pointed to the role of unions and the crucial place of workers many times in his Budget Speech. Indeed, we must continue to put Workers at the Heart of All we do.
My fellow Labour MPs and I will speak up for the different segments of our working population. The common point that we want to make is that Every Worker Matters to the overall good of economy, society and country.
I will focus, as I have done over the years, on the mature working population.
I would frame the context of my speech by making 2 points:
First, we are running into predicted headwinds as far as economic growth is concerned. If we do nothing, our ability to generate national wealth to invest in the future and fund welfare for the present will face problems. Inequality in our society will grow.
It is crucial that we discuss how we can grow the pie.
Second, that by taking the right coordinated steps, we can turn threat into opportunity, continue our ability to grow economically and cohere better socially. It is the practice of Social & Economic Defence.
Local Workforce Zero Net Growth
For a few years now, we have been reminded that the local workforce in Singapore will plateau from around 2020. In other words, based on current employment and retirement rates, the incoming local workers will only be enough to replace the retiring workers. There will be Zero Net Growth in local workforce.
So what if that happens?
We know that GDP Growth = Productivity Growth + Manpower Growth.
Thus, if the Manpower Growth component becomes zero, then the only GDP growth (which is how national resources are ultimately generated for use to care for Singaporeans) will have to depend on Productivity Growth. It is like flying a plane with one jet engine shut down.
The 4 Manpower Taps
Obviously, we would do better not to let Manpower Growth become zero. But where do we get Manpower from?
There are only 4 ways any country can get manpower.
The first source would be school-leavers entering the workforce. These are the babies born some 20+ years ago. Their numbers were set 2 decades ago.
The second source is productivity growth through better work organization and design, technology, equipment and skillsets. This is what Industry Transformation is about. By become more productive, the same number of people can create more economic value through their work. This is very important and it is the other Jet Engine to fuel growth.
The third source is foreign manpower. About 1 in 3 persons in Singapore’s workforce is a foreigner. It is obvious that we have to judiciously manage the size, mix and growth of this manpower source so that while we gain from their contributions, Singaporean workers have a fair go at opportunities and prospects.
In other words, we cannot just open the floodgates to foreign manpower to solve our zero net local workforce growth challenge.
That therefore brings us to the fourth and final manpower tap – making the best of our local population in the working ages – both those currently in work as well as the latent pool waiting to be activated for work.
Call in Budget 2018
Prolonging the work years of those currently working was precisely the reason why I called for Tripartite discussions to review the long-term retirement and Re-employment ages in the Budget last year,
I am grateful that the Ministry of Manpower has convened a Tripartite Workgroup on Older Workers to review Retirement and Re-employment goalposts and also to consider adjustments to the CPF contribution rates for older workers. The Workgroup has been carefully considering these important and difficult topics, and there is much work ahead.
I am also grateful to the Finance Minister for extending the Special Employment Credit and the Additional Special Employment Credit so that mature workers’ cost-effectiveness are reinforced.
There is more that we can do besides reviewing the Retirement and Re-employment Ages to get the best of our mature working age population.
The example of Childcare and Housewives Working
When Singapore started industrializing in the late 1960s and 1970s and its economy needed manpower, it posed a challenge on where the additional manpower would come from. At the same time, it also offered an opportunity for households to increase their incomes and living standards and for women to become more financially resilient.
But there was a hurdle. Many women at that time were full-time housewives, having to look after the children at home while the husbands worked to provide for the family. How are they to go to work? Who is going to look after their children?
The basic transformation of that time was the scaling up of childcare provision. Parents could entrust their children to childcare in an affordable and accessible manner. Over the years, quality has also gone up. That liberated the women from being stuck with no choice, to being able to choose to work.
At the same time, the economy got the additional manpower it needed. The country grew its wealth and could better afford to invest for the future and to care more for those in need.
And because Singapore took bold co-ordinated steps then to overcome the obstacle, the Singapore economy and society are much better off today – both in living standards and in having less inequality than if the women did not have the choice to work and earn.
Another Round of Liberation - 33,000 or more Mature working age Singaporeans unable to work due to caregiving
Singapore now faces a similar challenge to re-activate our latent working population to fuel growth and meet short-term and long-term individual and societal needs.
According to the Ministry of Manpower’s Labour Force Survey 2018, there are close to 170,000 female residents aged between 40 to 59 in Singapore who were not working. Of these, around 33,000 or 1 in 5 of them cited caregiving to family members or relatives (excluding childcare) as the main reason for not working
33,000 people is the equivalent of a year’s birth cohort. Caregiving is also a secondary reason for many in the rest of that 40-59 age cohort for having to quit work and not being able to get back into working. Thus, the total latent pool of Singaporeans who can and want to work is significant. This pool will grow as the Singapore population ages further, and more caregiving needs emerge within families.
At the same time, companies across many industries are facing a tight labour market and crying out for manpower to meet their needs.
So here is a structural mismatch between the supply of and demand for manpower.
It is not just a technical problem. There are profound social and financial consequences for the individual, the family, the economy and the country if a large and growing pool of middle-aged Singaporeans forms and is unable to earn for their immediate upkeep and retirement needs. It will definitely fuel inequality and erode social cohesion.
Turning a Threat into an Opportunity
How do we turn this Threat into an Opportunity that benefits all?
A 2017 survey by NTUC’s U Family secretariat of 529 Stay-at-Home-Women aged between 25 and 54 found that 2 in 3 of them were keen on returning to the workforce, if only suitable part-time work arrangements could be found to allow them to balance between earning an income and undertaking caregiving.
It is therefore clear that in order for this pool of latent workers to be activated, 3 key breakthroughs are needed.
Firstly, we must establish, akin to what was done in the childcare provision analogy, what the requirements are for accessible, affordable eldercare provision in the community in order to relieve the 33,000 or more caregivers to be available to undertake at least part-time work.
Current capacity build-up and funding plans for such provision, be it Senior Activity, Senior Day Care or live-in Care is mostly predicated on the expected health and social needs of seniors. Considerations of how to relieve and liberate their caregivers to be able to choose to work are peripheral.
This review must also consider whether the funding model for service provision can ensure that supply is sustainably built up at the place that is required.
Secondly, assuming that the effort above succeeds in allowing thousands of such caregivers to work, what work can they find and where?
This is a critical question, because if supply of manpower is increased without corresponding increase in demand or absorptive capacity, then all we get is frustration and an increase in the unemployment rate.
Earlier, I pointed to the U Family survey that showed a high proportion of caregivers wanting part-time work. This also means that if more companies have such options for their workers, many of those who had to quit to care for family would have been able to stay in work, earn and provide better for their immediate and longer term needs.
The Singapore labour market has long been based on the full-time staffing model. Comparisons of full-time employment rates for mature workers (55-64) between Singapore and OECD countries places us around the 10th position at 67.1%. In contrast, we are in 23rd position for part-time work for the age group 55-64 compared to OECD countries in 2017 at 8.3%.
This tells us that most Singapore companies have not yet learnt how to ably utilize and integrate part-time and other flexible work options into their mainstream manpower model, or are perhaps also unwilling to do so.
This is despite years of promoting flexible work arrangements (FWA) by the tripartite partners at national and company levels.
Therefore a thorough review of how part-time work and flexible work options can become integral to the mainstream staffing models of Singapore companies, alongside the traditional full-time work model is needed. We also have to determine how to set expectations of HR practitioners in Singapore to have the competence to make this work well for companies. We have to investigate mindsets, close knowledge gaps and consider incentives to open the way and grow the capacity. We can learn much for advanced economies like the Netherlands and Japan in this regard, as they have been able to achieve high employment rates for both full-time and part-time work – ie they are more able to more fully activate their mature working populations.
Success will come only when potential supply is matched to potential demand. This is not trivial and does not naturally happen.
Today, more than 40% of jobseekers above age 40 at e2i are successfully placed into mainly full-time jobs.
We must now identify sectors and occupations with good relative prospects to achieve strong placement outcomes for part-time work as well. We must also see whether training and placement mechanisms for part-time work may be different from full-time work, and what may need re-designing.
Call in Budget 2019
I therefore call for a Tripartite effort to:
examine and ascertain the requirements for sustainable Senior Care provision so as to enable the activation of the latent mature manpower pool;
determine how Fair and Flexible work, especially Part-Time work, can be structured and pervasively incorporated into mainstream company staffing models, and the role and competencies of HR practitioners in this endeavor;
Determine how Training/Re-training and Job Matching methods can be adapted to achieve significant improvement in the placement rates into part-time jobs for the targeted returning stream of mature working age Singaporeans, many of whom currently have to make the stark choice between work and caregiving.
In doing so, Mr Speaker, we will stay alert to structural trends, and maximise our chances of staying “one united people” that will together “achieve happiness, prosperity and progress”.
Thank you.
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