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Ready or not, the Future is Now
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise in support of the Budget, which seeks to help all segments of our economy – workers, businesses and households – to rebound strongly from the devastating impact of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular, I support the Government’s proposal to set aside S$11 billion under the COVID-19 Resilience Package to support workers and businesses, especially for sectors that are still under duress.
The extension of the Jobs Support Scheme and the COVID-19 Driver Relief Fund for example, will go a long way to assist our brothers and sisters in the aviation, tourism, and point-to- point transport sectors.
But while we continue to provide support to affected sectors, we need to also address new macro trends that are developing in our workforce and at our workplaces. I will focus on two of them in my speech today – they are the phenomenon of Work-From-Anywhere and the Work-From-Home.
Work from anywhere – are we ready for this eventuality?
In his speech, Deputy Prime Minister spoke briefly about workplace trends and hinted how in the not-too-distant future, Singaporeans will be able to work from anywhere in the world, with just a laptop. I cannot agree more with DPM.
In fact, I would argue that the Work-From-Anywhere trend is already happening today.
This ability to work from anywhere is both an excellent opportunity, as well as a serious threat for Singapore and Singaporeans.
How so?
Competition for jobs will increase, and this will be no longer just be limited to talents located in Singapore. Instead, competition can come from literally anywhere in the world. What kind of jobs will be at risk? With seamless connectivity, supported by 5G technology, every job is at risk. But Singapore has never feared competition, even in the darkest of times. Instead, we learn, we adapt, and we always strive to do better than the competition.
To prepare Singapore for the eventuality of global competition, we will need to re-think key manpower policies. Will our Work Pass and Employment Pass regime remain relevant when companies no longer need employees to be physically based in one location to perform the work?
How long will this conventional system of balancing our local-foreign workforce mix continue to serve us?
But it is not all bad news. The ability to work from anywhere will bring the world closer to Singaporeans.
A good example is James Kwa, a Business Development Manager at Asia Market Entry, a consultancy company that partners with the Economic Development Board to bring investments into Singapore. Prior to the pandemic, James had to travel up to three times a week to meet and attract technology companies to set up shop in Singapore. But his company had to innovate due to the global shutdown in air travel. James now hosts overseas companies virtually through a suite of video content and video conferencing tools. When the pandemic is over, James and his company intend to continue hosting clients virtually, as the time saved from travelling allows them to showcase Singapore to even more clients.
Mr Deputy Speaker, we must not underestimate the pace of transformation. By 2035, technological advances will have a major impact on the social and economic foundations of society.
Today, we are already seeing an increase in the popularity of online project management tools, such as Asana, which allows managers to remotely manage team members based anywhere in the world.
As technologies like 5G and autonomous robotics begin to proliferate, Governments will have to confront a major dilemma – how much of the country’s key economic activities will be permitted to be run by companies and operated by a growing workforce domiciled elsewhere?
Our public officers will need adapt in the face of such major developments. But how many of our public officers today are ready to take on the challenges for tomorrow? Are our public service schemes ready for the day where life expectancies in Singapore reach well over 90 years?
I will speak more about the pressing need for our Public Service to take the lead in remaining adaptable, during the COS debate.
We also need to invest in the right public service infrastructure to seize the opportunities of tomorrow.
While I am heartened that the Government will commit 1% of our GDP, or about $25 billion, over the next 5 years to invest in research and innovation, we need to ask ourselves: is this ambitious enough?
According to the latest list of the world’s top 500 supercomputers, the processing power of Singapore’s fastest supercomputer is ranked at 390 in the world.
Contrast this to January 2017, just four years ago, when our first supercomputer, the Aspire 1, was then ranked 115th in the world. Have we lost pace in the development of deep technology infrastructure? What can we do to catch up?
There is also an urgent need to re-look at SkillsFuture. Since its launch, less than 24% of eligible Singaporeans have utilised their SkillsFuture Credits. Clearly, we have hit the point of marginal returns.
We need to thoroughly review the SkillsFuture Credits programme and tweak the objectives of the programme to equip Singaporeans with future-ready skills.
Mr Deputy Speaker, training for jobs of the future is not as daunting as it sounds.
During my multiple visits to our Autonomous Vehicle (AV) trials locally, I met Ken Chia, a member of the National Transport Workers’ Union. Ken is a bus captain who is now a certified AV operator. When the AV is in operation, Ken’s responsibility is to ensure the safety of his passengers, and to take over manual control of the vehicle when needed.
Instead of a conventional steering wheel, Ken uses a small hand-held console comprising two joysticks. He jokingly said that it was easy for him, as he played plenty of video games during his teenage days.
But in reality, the initial training was anything but easy for Ken. More comfortable with the Chinese language, he had a tough time understanding the original training content, as it was taught in English by a French instructor!
But the company stepped in and the training materials were translated into Chinese for him. The lessons were also adapted to provide more hands-on training.
Ken is a good example of a worker who is already performing a job of the future. Every worker matters and the Labour Movement is committed to helping every worker transform and be ready to take on the jobs of tomorrow.
Dealing with challenges of Work-From-Home
Mr Deputy Speaker, COVID-19 has caused a fundamental shift to our workplace culture, with many companies allowing their employees to telecommute; and local banks, such as DBS and UOB, have already committed to make flexi-work arrangements a permanent policy, post-pandemic.
Working from home, however, has brought along its own set of challenges, relating to space and caregiving needs.
WFH requires sufficient space
First, being productive while you work from home requires sufficient space. Parents will know what I mean.
Without a dedicated area to work, we are easily distracted with our children and by other things in the house that need our attention. Unfortunately, space is increasingly difficult to come by.
In the 1980s, a 4-room HDB Model ‘A’ flat would come with a floor area of between 105 to 108 square metres. Today, new 4-room HDB flats have a floor area of 90 square metres. HDB flats have shrunk in size, understandably, due to the reduction in our average household size.
But with more working and learning from home, is it time for us to return to building bigger HDB flats once again? An extra 15 square metres can provide Singaporeans with a study room that can also double up as a home office.
Provide better support for caregivers
Second, let us provide better support to caregivers. For some, working from home also means juggling work with caregiving needs.
These informal caregivers are often disadvantaged in their careers and retirement adequacy. But we have an opportunity to change this.
According to a Straits Times survey, eight in 10 workers in Singapore prefer to work from home or have flexible work arrangements. With this new normal of working from home, we need to encourage more employers to adopt flexible work arrangements.
This will allow caregivers to concurrently work and care for their loved ones, without having to make the difficult decision to choose one over the other.
In Radin Mas, we are building an ecosystem to support our residents with caregiving needs. Last year, we brought some of NTUC’s most experienced career coaches to the community centre to help those who need career guidance and job placement services. This has been particularly helpful for caregivers who had left work for a period of time and were struggling to return to the workforce.
Today, I am happy to announce the new Jobs Closer to Home programme. This is a pilot partnership between the NTUC and the Singapore Manufacturing Federation, to help residents in Radin Mas find jobs closer to home – more specifically, within a 5km radius of the constituency.
Residents with caregiving needs often tell me that they cannot afford a long commute to work. With this initiative, we hope to plug this gap and help match our residents with nearby companies. Most jobs on offer today are just a short bus ride away!
Conclusion
Mr Deputy Speaker, Budget 2021 will be the first time in our history that we are drawing on our reserves for a second consecutive financial year. This is an unprecedented move that befits the unprecedented crisis that we are facing.
As we tackle the twin challenges brought about by the pandemic and the macro global trends affecting our workplaces, I am confident that the resources set aside in this Budget will spur transformation among our workers and our businesses.
The extension and enhancements made to the Jobs Growth Incentive will help all segments of workers, including mature workers, persons with disabilities as well as ex-offenders, to transit into jobs in growth sectors.
The Labour Movement stands united with the Government in helping Singapore emerge stronger together from the shadows of the pandemic, and to tap on the opportunities that the future holds.
With that, I support the Budget.
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