Guest-of-Honour, Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Welcome to our May Day Dinner. The last few years have been hard on our workers. The economy took hits from Sars and the war in Iraq. However, we kept our chins up, stood together in the fight and became more resilient. Through the concerted efforts put in by the tripartite partners and sacrifices of our workers, Singapore regained healthy economic growth in 2004. Employment grew more than the job losses over the preceding three years. All industry sectors except construction experienced positive growth, with the Pharmaceutical and biomedical industries being the most promising.
Some might wonder if last year was such a good year, why is this year’s May Day theme called “Creating Opportunities for More Jobs”?
Globalisation means that there is greater mobility of talent, goods and funds. Low-value added economic activities are moving to low-cost locations like China and India. This is inevitable. These jobs do not require workers to be highly skilled. Hence they will go where cheap labour is abundant, to keep their prices lower than their competitors. Maxtor is one good example. It had announced its intent to cut 5,500 jobs in Singapore. Such business restructuring is definitely not unique to Singapore. Many developed economies like US or Australia are facing similar problems.
NTUC is adopting a 2 pronged strategy to address these challenges.
Firstly, we recognise that it will be hard to compete purely on wages with workers in China and India. So we are bringing in higher value industries, industries which can continue to pay our workers a better wage. Some examples include chemical, pharmaceutical, life sciences, education, medical tourism. These jobs require better skills and higher productivity. Therefore, we have to restructure our workforce, level up their skills and improve their productivity so that they can take on these new jobs.
There will also be 35,000 new jobs for the Singaporeans as projected by our government when we launch the two Integrated Resorts. With a lead time of four years, Singaporeans can be trained, re-skilled to take on most of these 35,000 jobs. Mdm Halimah Yacob and some others made this call in Parliament recently.
Be that as it may, we have half a million Singaporean workers with below secondary education. Many of these workers are also older. This group is the most vulnerable in the new economy.
So the second prong of our strategy is to create jobs for lower-skilled Singaporeans. This is the purpose of the Job Re-Creation Programme. Through job re-creation, we want to redesign existing jobs in sectors such as healthcare, horticulture and cleaning. We want to improve the working conditions, increase the productivity of these jobs, raise the salary levels and enhance their image, so that Singaporeans are more willing to take them on. Employers, on the other hand must be willing to break the mould and make radical changes. It is a win-win approach.
The tripartite partners understand that job re-creation benefits all of us. For employers, turnover is likely to be lower compared to hiring foreign workers, who are by nature transient. There will be more stability and continuity, and employers can spend less on retraining a constant stream of new workers. Unions will also benefit when more workers are employed with better pay. For the Government, the programme helps to reduce unemployment rate, especially among the group of older and less educated workers.
Through this programme, we are targeting to re-create 10,000 jobs over the next 1½ years. To date, 5,000 jobs have already been targeted for job re-creation. I am pleased to announce that we have also managed to place about 2,000 lower skilled workers into re-created jobs. We must press on with our efforts.
With more rapidly changing market demands, companies will need greater flexibility to optimise manpower resources. To reduce the onus on employers to hire and fire with the changing business conditions, NTUC supported a tripartite workgroup to come up with guidelines on flexible work arrangements.
This flexible arrangement would enable companies to more effectively deploy their manpower to cope with the fluctuating demands during the peak and lull periods. Companies could enhance their productivity and competitiveness, and have other options to consider instead of retrenching workers when the demand falls. For workers, there is better job security and a stable basic monthly income. They also stand to share some of the gains or profits when their employers implement flexible work arrangements.
With an aging population, older workers will make up a greater proportion of our workforce. The employability of older workers is vital for our national competitiveness. Going forward, older workers will have fewer children to depend on, unlike their predecessors. Hence, the financial strain on families will increase significantly if the older members of the family cannot be gainfully employed. Moreover, many workers’ CPF balances may only be just sufficient for subsistence.
The NTUC believes that it is important to raise the employment rate of all older workers. This is beneficial to workers not just from the financial perspective, but also improves their sense of dignity and engagement with society.
To do this, we have to change perceptions of older workers among both employers and workers. We have to identify specific industries or sectors where there are more potential opportunities for older workers, and work on suitable measures to increase their chances of employment. Some companies in the US and UK are beginning to realise that with their customers also getting older, they may relate better to being served by others of similar age. Hence, employing older workers may even be a competitive advantage to these companies, instead of a liability. We must think of how we can start a similar revolution in thinking here.
The NTUC cannot do this alone. We need the support of our tripartite partners. More importantly, we also need the support of our affiliated unions, to help workers look beyond the immediate attraction of retirement, to look at their quality of life in the longer term. It may be better for workers to continue working longer at the same or slightly lower wage. It is considerably harder for workers to stop working prematurely, only to find it hard to rejoin the workforce later when they realise that they need to continue to work.
This May Day, we come together to celebrate our solidarity. I take heart that the labour movement has stayed true to its promise of protecting the interests of the workers by creating opportunities for more jobs. We can and will continue to do more.
We will continue to “Redesign, Retrain and Reclaim” jobs for our workers in the domestic services sectors.
We will continue to drive wage restructuring to provide greater job security and wage flexibility.
We will continue to encourage portable medical benefits and Individual Learning Accounts, to ensure that workers’ interests continue to be looked after while they are in between jobs.
We will continue to stay close to the ground and represent our workers from all sectors of the society.
Let me now invite the Guest-of-Honour, Minister Lim Hng Kiang to address us. Please enjoy the rest of the evening.
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