The past seven years has been a bumpy ride for Singapore workers. Workers have had to cope with the impact of a series of events including the September 11 destruction of the New York World Trade Centre, the Bali bombing, downturn in the electronics sector, the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, the Iraq War, and SARS. Workers accepted difficult, and sometimes painful adjustments.
Now the economy is rebounding. There is good reason for Singapore workers to celebrate this year. But many remain cautious – rightly so, after the experience of the past seven years.
What does this show? That our workers are realistic, and practical. That our workers are resilient. Our workers have taken knocks, and rebounded each time!
Today our workers no longer take for granted that the jobs they have will be theirs for life. They expect change. They expect there will be other knocks. That is why they are cautious.
How can we smoothen the way ahead for workers? We should strengthen our social safety net.
Firstly, make lifelong learning a habit for all workers. We should allow individuals to upgrade their skills, in addition to the training they receive from their employers. Then it will be easier for them to find a new job when they have to.
Secondly, develop a portable medical benefits scheme. We should have a basic national scheme as the foundation. Then we should allow each one to purchase additional insurance coverage over the basic scheme. Then they will be covered if they are hospitalized when unemployed.
Thirdly, encourage workers to save for a rainy day. They will have some funds to tide them over during unemployment.
These have been NTUC’s goals for several years. We are working with employers and government to realize this safety net.
But the best welfare that we can provide is a job for each worker. We will attract more investments. These investments, however, require mostly workers with higher skills. Let us take a look at manufacturing.
We do not have a big domestic market, yet we have a strong electronics sector. The output of the electronics sector last year was $62.2 billion. While many activities in electronics sector have moved out to cheaper locations, the companies here have upgraded to higher value added products.
We do not have natural resources like crude oil, or a big domestic market, yet we have a strong and growing chemicals cluster that produced $39.1 billion last year.
Now the biomedical sciences industry is fast becoming the third pillar in our manufacturing sector. Started only a few years ago, last year its output was $11.3 billion. This year the output is expected to exceed $12 billion, two years ahead of the target. A new target has been set - $24 billion within the next ten years. This industry now employs 7,500 people. The value-added per worker is $900,000, compared to the manufacturing average of $174,000. The growth of this sector is remarkable, so much so that Mr Philip Yeo, chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, who has been one of the key persons driving the development of this sector, is listed as one of the 50 most influential people in the intellectual property world by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
Our ability to build an industry from nothing, time and time again, gives us confidence that if we adopt the right policies and measures, we can attract investments to create new and better-paying jobs for Singaporeans.
If we need another indicator to assure ourselves that we can build a better future for ourselves, then look at the financial services industry. It was built up from scratch, taking advantage of a window in the trading time-zones of the world, and in competition with other centres in the same time zone as us. Recently there was restructuring and consolidation, leading to job losses. Now the sector is growing again. It is also a sector with high value added per person.
So the future is bright for those with good education and skills.
Over the past seven years, thousands of lesser-skilled workers have lost their jobs to workers in other countries. Some have not been able to find steady employment. Others who have found new jobs accepted sharp cuts in wages. Many of these workers will not be able to upgrade their skills to take the higher paying jobs in the new industries setting up here.
For them, it would be another job suited for their skills. Many of these jobs will be in the domestic services sector. We should help them into such jobs. Last year, we embarked on an effort to re-design some of these jobs to raise productivity, so that displaced Singapore workers can receive higher wages.
The results have been encouraging in some cases, disappointing in others. But we owe it to these workers, who also are older, to persevere. We should learn from our experience. Our unions cannot do this alone. We will need the joint efforts of the NTUC, the government agencies, and employers to succeed.
We have succeeded in tackling many difficult problems before, through tripartite effort. I am confident that we will succeed in this effort. We must. Our past history, though short, tells us that provided we have the will and the guts, we can make the future we want for ourselves.
I wish all our workers Happy National Day.
