All major companies in the air transport sector, who belong to the NTUC aerospace and aviation cluster, have committed to set up company training committees so as to increase the capabilities and productivity of some 34,500 workers by re-designing jobs, reskilling and upskilling workers.
These companies include the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Changi Airport Group (CAG), dnata Singapore, SATS and the SIA Group.
The cluster said that it will ensure all training initiatives are inclusive and will include about 5,000 outsourced workers in the airport terminals comprising cleaners, security officers, landscape maintenance workers, facilities management workers and trolley retrievers.
The cluster, together with CAAS, also intends to form a sectoral-level CTC workgroup.
“Through a community approach, the workgroup will ensure that the entire air transport ecosystem is ready for more integrated man-machine workplaces, in line with industry transformation,” said NTUC in a release.
To do this, the workgroup will pull together the air transport CTCs’ discussions and plans and identify common sectoral challenges.
It will also look at the training needs identified by the various CTCs and work with educational institutions to design training courses relevant across the air transport sector, especially for jobs with similar training needs.
New areas of training will include robotics process automation, which makes use of digital technology to automate routine processes.
“As our unions in the cluster work with management through the various CTCs to ensure our workers are better prepared for the future, we hope that the sector-level approach that the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster is undertaking to complement the CTCs’ efforts will help accelerate workforce and job transformation across the entire air transport ecosystem.
“The air transport sector consists of a few key players, and there are competing business needs amongst them. It is therefore heartening to see that we can come together and undertake unified actions to tackle common sectoral manpower challenges,” said Ong Hwee Liang, chairman of the NTUC aerospace and aviation cluster.
CAAS Director-General Kevin Shum said he is heartened that the sector’s employers are forming CTCs to better synergise their transformation plans to their workers’ developmental needs, and create win-win outcomes for both employers and employees.
