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Mr Speaker sir, thank you for allowing me to join this debate.
Before I begin, on behalf of NTUC, I want to thank Minister Josephine Teo for your acknowledgement of our partnership and symbiotic relationship. We will never shy away from stepping up in a time of need to look after workers, to look after everybody who has to earn a living, to work with the Government, to work with our symbiotic partner, to do the right thing. We believe in action. We believe in learning. We will do our best. And we will do better. And it is always hard when you’re doing things, something that was not pre-existing, and you will learn. But we’re committed to that, and our actions and our results speak for themselves in that they have touched lives. And in that, we take comfort.
A SERIOUS SITUATION
Sir, as the President has highlighted, “Jobs will continue to be the top priority for the next few years.”
Singapore depends greatly on trade and global demand for manufacturing, logistics and financial services. A big chunk of employment is also dependent on tourism and air travel, as these directly and indirectly create jobs for the air hub and related services, tourism services, local transportation, hotels, retail, F&B, and so on.
The economic and social disruptions brought about by COVID-19 and by geopolitical and trade tensions have upended lives and livelihoods throughout the world.
The unprecedented four Government Budgets in the first half of this year, totalling close to $100 billion, helped blunt the worst effects. They helped save jobs and reduce retrenchments even when most companies and industries have little or in some cases, no revenue.
The world today continues to be shrouded in COVID-19 infections. There are also a rising number of countries facing new resurgence of COVID-19 infections, forcing them to re-tighten painful restrictions. So when everybody freezes up, that has an impact on a trading nation and logistics hub. It means that our economy will be squeezed.
Which means that jobs will be lost. The labour market will see more jobseekers chase after vacancies, instead of the one that we were a lot more familiar with for years – which was jobs chasing after workers.
In this scenario, which may persist for some time, I want today to speak up again for a segment of the workforce who will then face an increased risk of job loss.
AGING IS A CONSTANT AMID THE WRENCHING CHANGES
Sir, amid all these wrenching changes, one might think that there are no constants anymore. But there are, and one of them is aging. It happens regardless of whether there are geopolitical or trade tensions. It even goes undeterred by COVID-19.
I have spoken in this House many times before on the need for our country to prepare well and in advance for the needs of an aging population and aging workers.
Previously, overall conditions were more benign. The economy was growing and there was a chronic shortage of workers in most sectors. Coupled with low population fertility, both the need and the benefit of enabling older workers to continue contributing is obvious – obvious to the older workers themselves, obvious to the companies and to the country. And with the economy continuing to grow, companies and workers also had the time to adjust.
THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT
This time it is different. In the months ahead, we will see more companies shedding workers through downsizing or even closure because demand and revenue conditions will not return to normal for many industries, while cost and cash pressures will continue to bear down on businesses.
Given this, the most critical outcome for Singaporeans is indeed Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Question is – whose jobs will go, and who will get the chance to be hired for the new jobs?
Many in this House have spoken already of the need to protect and safeguard the Singapore Core, and I support these efforts to support the Singapore core. I also strongly believe that we must clearly signal that job displacement and job hiring must not become areas for discriminating against older workers as a category.
Senior Minister Tharman, in an interview dated on 17 June 2020, said "This is, and must be, a national effort. And it needs new thinking among employers, to give middle-aged and mature Singaporean workers a fair chance to prove themselves". He said, "Employers need to reorient their management philosophies, and their human resources and talent management practices.
"No Singaporean who is willing to learn should be 'too old' to hire. And no one who is willing to adapt should be viewed as 'overqualified'," he said.
BE WARNED – AGEIST HIRING AND FIRING
Sir, if ageism rears its head and age discrimination results in age-based retrenchment, and becomes the easy way for employers and HR practitioners within companies to cut jobs to save costs and then to systematically deny rehiring opportunity, then much of what we have all laboured for for so many years to build, including the hard-won increase of employment rates among older cohorts of workers and the raising of retirement and re-employment age – all these accomplishments can very easily be eroded away. I want to draw attention to this. We must not take this lightly or as inevitable. Don’t take the easy way out. These deserve serious consideration.
On this, I want to thank Second Minister Tan See Leng and Minister Josephine Teo for speaking up for fairness for older workers earlier.
Furthermore, older displaced workers will have a harder time finding new work even in a buoyant economy and will often face a significant drop in wages. If a displaced older worker remains unemployed for a longer period, then that unemployment may turn sticky and become structural. There will be a knock-on effect on retirement adequacy. This will in turn mean a heavier call on family, community and State financial aid sooner. Not to mention what it does to the morale of the people.
I say all these not to pretend that all older workers are better at work than younger ones. I am saying this to help forestall a resort to a quick fix by stereotyping older workers as a category and then making hiring decisions unfairly on that kind of a basis and denying them a fair go. That’s what I’m warning against, let’s pay attention to it. The risk of this happening goes up in a recession, and we have heard of anecdotes of such thinking and behaviour. We must therefore warn against and stand up to it.
RESPONDING WITH H.E.A.R.T.
Sir, how do we stand up to it? I propose a 5-pronged approach, which I will use the acronym H.E.A.R.T.
H – Holding On to Jobs
H is for holding oon to jobs. Of course this is the most preferred of options. The Government on its part has set aside a lot of funding to help improve the cost-effectiveness of employing older workers. In the 2020 Budget, there was a Senior Worker Support package comprising the Senior Employment Credit, the Senior Worker Early Adopter Grant and the Part-time Re-employment Grant. The extension of the Jobs Support Scheme will also help defray the payroll cost of older workers, as they do other workers. In the most recent announcement, DPM Heng allocated an additional $1 billion in the Jobs Growth Incentive aimed at spurring the hiring of workers aged 40 and above.
Why am I rattling all this? This is to remind employers of all these special funding for the hiring of older workers and giving a fair chance to older workers, so that they will not neglect these facts in any decision-making concerning older workers and hiring.
At the same time, schemes such as e2i’s Lift and Place programme, which keeps workers on payroll while they are on temporary seconded to another job in another industry, should be tapped wherever possible to minimise and delay retrenchments.
On the part of older workers, I also want to continue to stress the importance of looking after our health the best we can while at the same time demonstrating a positive work attitude and willingness to adapt and be flexible. This makes it easier for employers to adjust their operations. Such an older worker would also be more attractive to an employer compared to another who is not like that.
E – Employment assistance
Next, E for Employment assistance. Despite best efforts by all, some workers will be displaced. When this happens, the most important task is to help the person get back into work as quickly as possible. Prolonged unemployment erodes hiring prospects, especially for older workers.
In this context, the work of the National Jobs Council under SM Tharman and the NTUC’s Jobs Security Council led by NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng (which leverages the Labour Movement network and now acts in concert with and in support of the NJC) these are important arrangements. Within the NTUC network there is also the Company Training Committees (CTCs). I wanted to make mention of this because the honourable member Leon Perera made mention of the Titanic. Fortunately, Singapore’s economy is not like that. We came up with the Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs) and indeed I recall DPM Heng also in his speech talk about 2.0. So in other words, it is something that we know we are not just using for one time. Our economy is constantly changing. In fact, we’re not transforming fast enough. In that sense, we are not the Titanic.
What does the the JSC do? One of the things it does, instead of job matching job seeker by job seeker, it goes and talks to participating companies -- who is having access manpower? Let us know, then you say how do we match ahead, retrain and go. This is exactly what Leon Perera was talking about. Make the arrangements, help the workers go. We are agreed that it is important, and we are doing it.
The NTUC JSC recently reported that it has matched 20,000 jobseekers to new job openings. It will press on to do more, to help more.
One critical successful factor in job matching is the availability of job vacancies. Aside from public and private sector vacancies in existing and growth areas such as health, long term care, biomedical and logistical fulfilment for online sales, there has also been a slew of initiatives under the SG United banner, including:
• SGUnited Jobs initiative, that seeks to create more than 40,000 jobs in 2020
• SGUnited Traineeships Programme
• New SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme for mid-career individuals
• Enhanced hiring incentive for those who undergo eligible reskilling and training programmes
• New training support under the SGUnited Skills programme
• SGUnited Jobs and Skills Career Centres in HDB towns
I urge the NJC to closely monitor the job matching, switching and retraining efforts and outcomes for older workers, and make the necessary adjustments, enhancements and interventions in the weeks and months aside in order to prevent the build-up of a sticky or permanent precariat of older involuntarily displaced workers.
A – Act Fairly
A for Act Fairly. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) works closely with the Ministry of Manpower to promote and police fairness at work. In the area related to age, it has actively and steadfastly upheld the principles laid down in the relevant tripartite guidelines such as those on fair employment practices, re-employment of older employees and non-discriminatory job advertisements when dealing with complaints.
The NTUC has over the years also pushed for protection for older workers and those have been variously incorporated into the laws such as when we amended the Industrial Relations Act and when we created the Retirement & Re-employment Act as well as introduced various tripartite advisories, guidelines and standards. We will continue to pay attention this, and to do what is right by our older workers.
We do that in order to reflect the fine balancing of interests between companies and older workers. In a recession, saving jobs is paramount. Flexibilities between the parties will have to be discussed, because we are in serious situations. So let’s not pretend, we have to discuss. But whatever we do, the spirit of how we do it, and do it altogether, not only now, but for the long term, those principles are important. We must adhere to that spirit as we discuss.
Where it is really unfair, in egregious cases, we all know that TAFEP also works with the Ministry of Manpower to add bite to its advice and recommendations for improvement. To have teeth in something like that is key to being taken seriously, and TAFEP borrows the teeth from MOM. In the situation we’re facing today, it is of a scale and that it is quite unlike things we’ve done before. We have to also continually look at this situation. I know Minister Teo has elaborated just now how painful the curtailing of work pass privileges can be, and it is indeed so. We will monitor and see what other regularly piece might be as the situation goes. But I much rather companies treat every worker, including older workers fairly. Then we all work this out together and emerge together.
R – Relief
Now R for Relief. For mature workers who are displaced, or who face severe wage cuts, the journey ahead will be tough as they seek to provide for themselves and also to meet family commitments.
I support MSF’s stance to “leave no one behind”. I urge MSF to consider a second tranche of the COVID-19 Support Grant (CSG) and/or the Temporary Relief Fund (TRF) in order to provide more relief to workers who may be displaced in the months ahead. I also seek MSF’s support to empower the Social Service Offices (SSOs) with greater flexibility to help displaced workers promptly to cope with family expenses arising out of Covid-19 through COMCARE and other schemes. Give them more leeway to exercise.
As the slowdown wears on, calls by individuals to tap into their CPF savings to tide over this difficult period will also grow. While I hope that when MOM and the CPF Board receive such requests, that they will look at each case sympathetically and flexibly at such requests as much as possible, I am also very mindful that early drawdowns will inevitably translate into weaker eventual retirement adequacy for those workers who have to resort to such early withdrawal if approved.
I still therefore hope that the CPF savings of our older workers can be safeguarded for as long as possible, for as much as possible.
To help provide greater support to our older workers who face financial hardship, especially those of lower wage, I hope that MOM to consider reviewing and expanding the qualifying criteria parameters of schemes such as the Silver Support Scheme and the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS). These are schemes that are already there to help seniors, to help older lower-wage workers. There is already within the WIS also certain extra consideration for older workers, and I thank MOM for that. But in this situation, can we look at reviewing it to help them in a more timely, effective and meaningful way because more will need this.
Older Singaporeans will also face higher medical expenses compared to younger citizens on average. In this regard, I would also hope that MOH to please consider whether there could be higher thresholds or caps on Medisave withdrawals for older Singaporeans, or greater flexibility on a case-by-case basis to help with coping with cash expenses without sacrificing or delaying medical treatment.
Just last night at my Meet-the-People session, I had such a case where the overall bill was $800. Because of the cap, $300 was allowed to be deducted from Medisave and he had to come up with $500. He said that it was really very, very difficult, and it would be better if he could be allowed to withdraw more, maybe on a temporary basis during this crisis. I think we should consider that, in terms of the cash impact to families who may not have the financial resources.
T – Tough it Out Together
Finally, T for Tough it out together. Beyond the specific help measures, it is the collective will of the people to stand as one, and not to let adversity cow us, or to split us, or to break us, that sets the tone of our society and decide our fate as a nation.
This is a time like no other. Let us gather our strengths and our wits, and tough it out together and emerge Stronger Together.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I support the Motion.
