~ Enhanced career progression path for local new job entrants ~
Launch of the Marine Engineering Cluster
The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) launched the Marine Engineering Cluster this afternoon at the National Day Observance Ceremony (NDOC) event. Comprising of four unions from the marine industry - Keppel Employees Union, Keppel FELS Employees' Union, Sembawang Shipyard Employees' Union and the Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Employees' Union – the cluster will come together to tackle the challenges of refreshing and strengthening the Singaporean core in the industry.
The marine industry is among one of the few industries that continues to grow steadily despite the uncertain global economic outlook. The industry rakes in $13.32 billion worth of businesses last year and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years as companies continue to chalk up healthy orders from customers. It currently employs about 111,000 workers within the industry. However, the industry is facing the challenge of an ageing Singaporean workforce as well as the difficulty in attracting young Singaporeans to join the sector. With a better educated workforce, many young Singaporeans today prefer to work in industries that offer better work life balance, higher pay packages with a conducive working environment.
Refreshing the Singaporean Core through Progressive Wage Model
To address the challenges face by the industry, the Marine Engineering cluster unions will be working with employers to implement a progressive wage model. This model allows employees to upgrade their skills from NITEC to Higher NITEC and Polytechnic Diploma. With upskilling, higher productivity and enlarged job scope, employees will be able to enjoy higher pay progressively. In collaboration with NTUC Employment and Employability Institute (e2i), Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and NTUC LearningHub (LHUB), a Place and Train (PnT) Programme for the Marine Engineering industry was officially launched today by the Marine Engineering cluster.
Under this PnT programme for the Marine Engineering industry, Singaporeans who have a GCE “N” or “O” level certificate but do not have the technical knowledge nor experience will be able to join the industry. They can look forward to a minimum starting basic pay of $1,500 per month. They will undergo a structured On-The-Job Training (OJT) of between 9 to 12 months to equip themselves with the relevant skills to become competent tradesmen in the shipyards or Machinists in the oil and gas companies. At the end of the OJT, their employers would continue to train them progressively up the skills ladder so as to enable them to be better skilled, more productive and continue to move up the wage scale. See Annex A for detailed progressive wage model.
Employers are given funding support of up to $600 per month as training allowance and OJT training support of up to $6,300 per employee under this PnT Programme for the Marine Engineering industry. Two companies in the oil and gas sector, namely Baker Hughes and Hunting Energy Services are early adopters of the PnT Programme for Machinists, recruiting a total of seven persons who have no machining knowledge, to be trained as machinists. The cluster hopes that more employers will tap on this PnT programme to attract and train new entrants into the industry. Separately, a job fair that was organised by e2i on 3 August 2012 and participated by four companies also saw 183 potential employees registered to join the industry, of which 133 applicants were shortlisted for second interview with the companies.
Conversion Programme for Professionals, Managers & Executives
The Marine Engineering Cluster, e2i and LHUB are also working on a PnT cum conversion programme for mid-career engineers to take up appointments as Engineers or Assistant Engineers in the marine industry so as to encourage them to remain in the industry instead of looking for employments outside their engineering field.
Official Opening of LHUB’s Industry Skills Centre
Guests at the NDOC also witnessed the official opening of a 50,000 square feet LHUB Industry Skills Centre. The Industry Skills Centre is centerpiece to the start of a new alliance between LHUB and the Association of Singapore Marine Industries (ASMI) in 2012. It is aimed at meeting the industry’s training demands; and to improve the training and safety of marine workers who will be employed in the various shipyards in Singapore. Industry skills training such as welding, forklift driving, scaffolding, working at heights etc at various competency levels will also be conducted at this centre. As one of the largest training providers of Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) training in Singapore, LHUB will also conduct mandatory Safety Orientation courses and WSQ WSH Professional courses at this centre.
Recalibration of Wage System
Besides the progressive wage model, the cluster is also looking at recalibrating the wage system in the marine industry. Traditionally, the industry pays a low basic salary supplemented by high overtime and good bonuses when the company does well. However, the need for overtime work has been largely reduced with better technologies, work processes and more stringent safety requirements in place today. Today, bonuses account for around 30 per cent of a unionised rank and file worker’s total pay.
The cluster is urging companies to consider a wage recalibration exercise to bring the wage structure back to the recommended 70% basic:10% Monthly Variable Component:20% variable bonus flexible wage structure given the healthy demand for marine engineering services. The recalibration can be done through building up the monthly basic pay and lowering the variable payment portion in the total annual pay package.
The Marine Engineering cluster believes that companies and employees will benefit in the long term with the recalibration and a progressive wage system put in place.
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