Mr Speaker, I thank PM for the comprehensive Budget statement.
I appreciate that Budget 2025 would enhance existing programmes and introduce new initiatives such as the Large Families scheme that respond to Singaporeans’ changing aspirations and needs as well as the SG Culture Pass and ActiveSG Credit top-up that will boost interest and careers in arts, heritage and sports.
Mr Speaker, I support the Budget. It will set our sails to catch favouring winds as we forge ahead in an uncertain economic climate. Even then, social and economic changes are uneven and unsettling, for vulnerable Singaporeans more so than others.
A 2022 Harvard Business Review article on perceived job insecurity among American workers sets the impact in context. “Whether you’ve been laid off, downsized, forced to take early retirement, or seen contract work dry up, losing your employment is one of life’s most stressful experience. Aside from the obvious financial anguish it can cause, the stress of losing a job can also take a heavy toll on your mood, relationships, and overall mental and emotional health.”
In Singapore’s context, who are the emerging groups of vulnerable workers where we must lean forward?
Two groups come to mind: those who could be hit hard by layoffs when their employers reorganise or restructure, and those who would be hard-hit by market shifts such as freelancers and agency workers. Both groups see the same overcast on the horizon – that of possible job loss. Allow me to elaborate.
First, those who could be hit hard if companies reorganise or restructure and take the decision to lay off staff.
A mother-and-daughter sat close to me at a crowded food shop. I caught this remark by the daughter, a lady in her thirties.
“我最怕的就是裁员” which translates to “I am most fearful of being retrenched.”
Retrenchment is a heavy topic for mealtime conversations. However, it is a topic that is increasingly par for the course as firms push ahead with merger and acquisition or M&A, and business reorganisation and restructuring.
No age group of workers is immune to retrenchment. Quarterly labour market reports for the first to third quarters of 2024 showed that while retrenchment incidence remained the highest for resident workers aged between 50-59, retrenchment incidence had risen for those aged between 30-39.
Many of us strive for immunity by working harder, often at the expense of our health; a 2024 survey by health technology provider Telus Health revealed that two-thirds of Singaporean workers showed signs of burnout, particularly those under the age of 40.
If government, employers, and unions fail to recognise and respond to the prevalent perception of job insecurity, workers can become increasingly stressed and disillusioned.
Second, those who would be hard-hit by market shifts. They include freelancers and agency workers.
In July 2024, Hollywood video game performers went on strike to seek fair artificial intelligence regulations for the gaming industry because performers asserted that gaming companies had condoned replicating of performers’ likeness and voices without informed consent and fair compensation. Because performers were largely freelancers and paid by the hour, incomes took a hit when companies reduced contracted hours in favour of exploiting AI as a substitute.
If service buyers fail to respect and uphold fair use of AI, creative freelancers will become increasingly vulnerable to diminishing earnings and prospects.
Apart from creative freelancers, agency workers could be hard-hit when user firms respond to market shifts. User firms hire agency workers on temporary basis for projects and specific roles where these workers’ skills are needed. Many agency workers service hotels, F&B, supermarkets, e-commerce logistics, and banks.
Unlike the past when companies turned to staffing agencies as stop-gaps, companies are increasingly hiring agency workers as a shortcut to organisational flexibility and fluidity. In a 2021 article by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Matt Creagh, a UK Trades Union Congress employment rights policy officer said, “It’s easy for employers to hire agency workers because you don’t have the fixed costs of a directly employed workforce and it’s much easier to fire an agency worker. You just ring up the agency and say, ‘We don’t want them coming back in.’ If you have an agency workforce, they’re more likely to be on the statutory basic terms and conditions – minimum holiday, minimum wage, minimum rest breaks.”
If user firms and staffing agencies fail to respect and uphold employment regulations and fair employment practices, agency workers will become increasingly vulnerable to decaying skills and being shortchanged in compensation, particularly those who are lower wage and lower-skilled.
The pace of change is accelerating and will hit home for workers. How might we lean forward to protect and uplift this emerging vulnerable workforce?
Separate reports from the World Employment Confederation and the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs point to two trends taking root this year: one, more companies will strive to build flexibility into the workforce, and two, more companies will seek to exploit AI at functional levels. Together, these trends will disrupt how work is done and valued. Nonetheless, Singapore must press on with innovation and growth to counteract the demographically driven reduction in innovation. Allow me to explain.
In 2010, Japanese inventors were the biggest producers of patents in thirty-five global industries. By 2021, they only led in three global industries. The Economist linked Japan’s decline in disruptive innovation to its demographic decline, which in turn was an outcome of falling total fertility rate and limited immigration. Turning to Singapore, Singapore’s total fertility rate has been falling – from 1.12 in 2021 to 0.97 in 2023.
Singapore must press on with innovation efforts to counteract demographically driven reduction in innovation. Innovation raises productivity and ultimately, standards of living. Budget 2025 is thus progressive yet protective.
Progressive because the Budget allocates significant funds to reinforce innovation and technology as engines of growth for the economy and enterprises. The Budget also offers financial incentives and tax perks that encourage businesses to grow strategically through M&A, and significant grants to transform jobs and upgrade workforce capabilities. Together with the $5-billion programme to strengthen the Singapore stock market, Budget 2025 will fuel a dynamic and evolving Singapore economy.
Protective because the Budget also allocates significant funds for various employment credit schemes and the progressive wage credit scheme that reinforce employment of vulnerable segments, including lower-wage workers, senior workers, persons with disabilities, and ex-offenders. The Budget also defrays cost of part-time long-form training programmes for Singaporeans aged 40 and above and enhances the training allowance for lower-wage workers. Together with the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme that was announced in 2024, Budget 2025 will improve employment and employability outcomes for these groups.
Nonetheless, the paradigm of job security is changing. Many of us, including the lady I met at the food shop, are still struggling to make sense of it. We struggle because being uncertain about our job security makes us feel helpless. Feeling helpless goes against the ethos of self-resilience ingrained in Singaporeans from young. Our ethos compels us to show that we can deal with all curveballs - to the extent that we might hold ourselves accountable if our jobs are made redundant.
Herein lies the paradox of self-resilience. We pride ourselves in taking tough times in stride. But this ease is built up when we endure hardship. It is not easy holding ourselves up when life deals us a low blow that knocks the wind right out of us. Thus, it does not matter whether we lose our jobs because of lay off, or in the case of freelancers and agency workers, cancellation of assignment. Job loss is a blow that inflicts extended psychological, emotional, and financial pain.
Because we extol self-reliance, even in such situations, we hesitate to seek help.
We can do more to lean forward to protect and uplift Singaporeans who are emerging vulnerable workers. Alongside clarifications, I would like to offer three suggestions of how we could lean forward as a country:
First, reframe self-resilience so that seeking help is not a sign of weakness but an affirmation of courage and determination. The experience of losing a job is distressing, especially when dependents look to us for finances, care and support.
Some who lost their jobs have to care for aged parents; some are parents of young children.
Would the government consider applying flexibility to the income criteria of the basket of Support for Families schemes? This would allow a worker who is involuntarily unemployed, or a freelancer who can prove significant loss in average monthly net trade income compared to the past two years, to still qualify for the schemes if they fulfil all other criteria sans the income criteria. Doing so could further encourage retrenched workers to apply for the Skillsfuture Jobseeker Support Scheme, particularly professionals, managers, and executives. It would be helpful if Scheme applicants could be concurrently linked with other assistance such as subsidised counselling support as well as workplace advisory for those who exited on unfair terms.
Second, reframe shared accountability so that enterprises and workers are committed to upholding the social compact. For instance, agency workers often slip beneath the radar when it comes to upskilling. Because agency workers are hired by staffing agencies but report for work at user firms, agency workers’ training needs are often overlooked. Without support and paid time-off to attend training, agency workers could suffer from skills decay and these workers could become less and less valued by the market.
I appreciate the government’s allocation of the additional $200 million to NTUC’s Company Training Committee Grant or CTC Grant to help more companies transform and upskill their workers. Nonetheless, as a unionist interacting with firms, I observed that firms expressed enthusiasm when discussing the use of CTC Grant for new systems or technology but needed more persuasion when the union broached job redesign or training. In response, I share my takeaway from the book <Good to Great> by business researcher Jim Collins - grants can help firms to bring in the right technology to jumpstart productivity. To scale and sustain, businesses must ‘have the right people on the bus’. My pitch to bosses: Tap the CTC grant; work with unions to build a flywheel of momentum that strengthens the people who will build your business with you.
Thus, would the government consider adopting the CTC approach for grant programmes managed by sector agencies? Through this approach, we can encourage more firms to practise fair and reasonable employment and hiring, redesign jobs to raise job worth, train lower-skilled workers including agency workers in the firm, as well as start programmes to attract and develop Singaporean talent. Doing so would reinforce shared accountability to develop and value Singapore workers and uplift the workforce across-the-board.
Third, reframe shared responsibility so that the lead government agencies are motivated to co-shape development roadmaps, with unions, employers and relevant fellow agencies as core stakeholders. For instance, as a unionist representing workers in the food sectors, I note that stakeholders in the food sectors must contend with concurrent developments in the food space such as the new food safety and security act and developments in the manpower space such as the progressive wage model, foreign manpower regulations, workplace fairness act, and flexible work arrangements. As agencies’ priorities do overlap, it would be helpful for lead agencies to engage the core unions and employer groups from the outset when the agencies set goals and design regulatory implementation. Doing so would ensure that workers’ interests are equally valued.
A similar approach could apply for areas that impact broad swathes of workers across sectors including persons with disabilities, agency workers, and freelancers. As the economy evolves, these groups might become even more vulnerable if they lack updated work protection and training. Thus, lead ministries and agencies could initiate multi-stakeholder workgroups to discuss protection and provisions for emerging vulnerable groups. We could take a leaf from the government’s approach to platform workers: Then, the whole-of-government leaned forward for platform workers and rolled out the new Platform Workers Act this year with strong support from platform operators and NTUC’s platform work associations. Platform workers can now be represented, protected, and supported.
Thus, would the government consider strengthening legal protection of freelancers and agency workers?
Creative freelancers look to the government to instil in service buyers, respect for creatives’ intellectual property rights and rights to timely payment and fair terms, and to uphold justice if buyers wilfully violate such rights. Agency workers too count on the government to look out for them, particularly those engaged by user firms that fall under the progressive wage model. Strengthening legal protection for these emerging vulnerable workers would provide them with a peace of mind.
To further uplift persons with disabilities, would the government consider increasing the range of accessible Skillsfuture training courses, including guiding training providers to provide reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities to attend the training?
To conclude, allow me to share a verse by 19th century American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox titled “The Winds of Fate”.
One ship drives east and another drives west
With the self-same winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate,
As we voyage along through life,
‘Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal
And not the calm or the strife.
We are at the turning of a chapter in Singapore’s journey. If we unite as a people, SG60 can be one defined by resilience that is empathetic as well as a shared accountability and responsibility for the growth and wellbeing of fellow Singaporeans, particularly those who are more vulnerable. Whether we are the government, business owners, employers, unions, or workers, the choice is upon us to be the heroes of our own story.
