With uncertain socio-political and economic outlook, increased technological advances and disruptions, and changing demographics and demand in the world’s economies, businesses and the workforce of today must evolve to stay ahead of competition tomorrow.
In view of these challenges, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) will set up a new capability, come 1 January 2017, to look into future jobs, skills and training (FJST) to help the unemployed of tomorrow find jobs of tomorrow.
In helping the unemployed of today find jobs of today and tomorrow, NTUC found three types of mismatches that have an impact on their job search and employability, specifically the mismatch of skills, mismatch of jobs and mismatch of expectations. Thus, the new capability aims to address these mismatches at a strategic level and in doing so, help our working people stay ready, relevant and resilient.
The Government has put in place various initiatives to help our workforce and businesses. For example, the SkillsFuture and Adapt and Grow initiatives are underway, and job opportunities in sectors that have pockets of growth have been identified. To complement these, the Labour Movement wants to do more to better identify future jobs and required skill sets so that our workforce are better placed to take on new jobs of tomorrow.
NTUC’s new capability: Help tomorrow’s unemployed into tomorrow’s jobs, today
As a Labour Movement that stands by our working people, NTUC wants to help them be prepared and get employed in jobs that are not only available today, but also, look towards the future for jobs that may be in demand and available tomorrow. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, it is projected that by 2020, 5 million jobs worldwide will be lost, and 2.1 million jobs worldwide will be created in more specialised areas of expertise.
NTUC’s new capability will function as a strategic nerve centre, leveraging the expanded Labour Movement network and tripartite partners, to identify tomorrow’s jobs and the skills needed for these jobs; and synergise efforts to train working people on these skills for these jobs. It will adopt a three-stage process of sensing (aggregating data on jobs and skills); synthesising (making sense of the data) and shooting (synergising training efforts for working people), that will facilitate a desired outcome of seeing tomorrow's job positions being filled and a decrease or hold in unemployment.
• Sensing
Making use of data gathered from the ground to find out where, when and what are the current and new opportunities available for workers. Sources of such information can and will come from the Labour Movement’s network of unions, associations, communities, touch points, social enterprises and tripartite partners.
• Synthesising
Crunching the data, numbers and figures, the information will be analysed, corroborated and validated to help shape and guide how the Labour Movement measure, predict and shape where new opportunities are in our market. This will then allow for an in-depth look at the exact skills and training needed for Singaporeans to tap these new opportunities.
• Shooting
Turning knowledge into strategic action. With the research findings, the Labour Movement will be able to act upon the information through the development of relevant skills and training courses and adopting a more focused and targeted approach to help Singaporeans make the actual transition and tap on new opportunities.
NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay, who will be leading this new capability, says, “The rate at which disruptions are impacting working people and businesses alike, is taking place at an accelerating rate. With the extensive network of the Labour Movement today, we are in a good position to be able to help facilitate the matching of jobs and skills of the future, and ensure that our workforce is able to ride these waves of change. At the same time, I urge workers and employers to keep an open mind, and be aware of the three attributes required to help the workforce of tomorrow into tomorrow’s jobs - adaptability, agility and ability. I am hopeful that with such paradigm shift, our working people will be able to move into the ‘high touch’ or high tech’ roles that will shape the jobs landscape in future.”
Leveraging the Labour Movement’s extensive network
As an unusual Labour Movement that looks after the interests of the evolving workforce demographics, NTUC will make use of its extensive network to help minimise the three mismatches of jobs, skills and expectations, and structural unemployment.
For a start, the new FJST capability will be embarking on pilot projects in the areas of financial services, information and communications technology & media, precision engineering, healthcare, education (early childhood and private education) and rank and file openings. These sectors have been identified based on their anticipated growth potential, projected expansionary needs and/or urgency and demand.
In the meantime, workers and employers can reach out to the Labour Movement for assistance, via various touch points such as the NTUC U PME Centre, NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) and NTUC LearningHub.
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