By Ryan Chan
Raising productivity levels is something NTUC has been pushing for over a number of years, but its importance has been pushed to the fore in recent times amidst an unstable economy this year.
The need for the Singapore economy to turn to manpower-lean methods to boost productivity levels can be attributed to a declining manpower growth and an increasing need for sustainable wage increases for workers. In 2014, overall productivity growth dropped by 0.8 per cent.
Tight Labour Market
In his Committee of Supply speech in April this year, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say highlighted that manpower growth is set to drop sharply within the next five years.
“The days of more than 100,000 job growth a year are over. It is simply not sustainable. This [manpower growth decline] is of great concern to MOM (Ministry of Manpower) because if we fail to become a more manpower-lean economy, manpower will become the bottleneck in our future growth,” said Minister Lim.
Sustainable Wage Increases
The recently announced National Wages Council (NWC) Guidelines 2016 also urge companies to move from employment-driven growth to productivity-driven growth, to help companies attract and retain workers, while allowing for sustainable wage increases.
“The manpower crunch will put pressure on companies to pay higher wages to retain and attract workers. For wage increases to be sustainable, companies need to push for more and greater improvements through job redesign or tapping on technology,” said NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability) CEO Gilbert Tan in an exclusive interview with NTUC This Week in September last year.
Taking the Right Steps
It is a challenge the Labour Movement recognises. In recent times, it has been ramping efforts to boost productivity levels for not just workers, but also small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Among their efforts are the Inclusive Growth Programme, which recently kicked off its second phase (see page 6), and the U SME Secretariat, one of nine multipliers of the Ministry of Manpower’s Lean Enterprise Development Scheme, which supports SMEs to be more manpower-lean through productivity initiatives.
“Our challenge going forward is convincing and mobilising more employers to push for productivity-driven growth and skills development as key strategies to sustainable broad-based real wage increases for all workers.
“Businesses need to transform through restructuring, innovation and productivity initiatives in tandem with training and reskilling of workers so as to prepare them for the industries and jobs of the future,” said NTUC Secretary-General Chan Chun Sing in a Facebook post, in reaction to the announced NWC Guidelines 2016.
Source: NTUC This Week
