Mr Speaker Sir, thank you for allowing me to join the debate.
The global workforce has come under considerable strain.
Anxiety and tension led to the Great Resignation. The Singapore workforce is also similarly affected.
These strains are caused by increased international competition, outsourcing of business functions, generational transitions in the workforce, and the speed of technological advancement. COVID has also vastly changed the way we work.
Many jobs are created while many are lost.
The latest Randstad survey reported that 48 per cent of respondents in Singapore are worried about losing their jobs. This anxiety is despite significant labour tightness.
As uncertainty becomes more pervasive, we need to restore confidence by addressing underlying structural causes of such anxiety.
As President Halimah said, we will strengthen social safety nets so that in every stage of life, Singaporeans can better cope with uncertainties and look forward with confidence.
It is impossible to shield Singaporeans from all such vagaries if we are to keep our economy open. An open economy is our livelihood after all.
But we can certainly enable Singaporeans by pushing for training, and reskilling.
And ensuring that all our workers are well-equipped to rebound and capture opportunities in the brighter areas of the economy.
And that if they do fall, they can bounce back quickly.
A more volatile economy
The economic outlook globally is more volatile and uncertain.
Transformation cycles are shorter.
Skills are becoming obsolete faster.
Researchers have found that 37 per cent of the average job’s skills have been replaced just over the past five years.
ChatGPT marks the first significant milestone that generative AI is placed in the hands of many companies and consumers.
Companies are racing to incorporate such capabilities into their work.
It also heralds the acceleration of the loss of lower-level analysts and research jobs.
Those slowest to react to such changes stand to lose the most. And out of these affected individuals, some segments of our workforce are in greater danger.
Vulnerable segments of our workforce
I would like to focus my speech on three segments of our workforce. Firstly, our Singaporeans born in the 1960s to 1970s.
This segment of individuals joined the workforce when Singapore was still in early stages of economic development.
Many of them sacrificed their education to support their families.
They have tended to work in one company or industry or function. Some have also not upgraded their skills since entering the workforce.
Many of them have risen through the ranks over the years in technical and managerial jobs.
When faced with the need to switch jobs, they tended to see a sharp drop in income.
Another group of vulnerable individuals comprise of our self-employed persons (SEPs).
We have seen the disproportionate impact COVID had on SEPs.
Through NTUC’s assistance in administering the Self-Employed Income Relief Scheme (SIRS), we are fully aware of the imperative to strengthen financial and career resilience for SEPs.
Because of irregular contributions to CPF, it was also difficult to dispense loss of income support.
Next, our older workers.
This segment of our workers not only face difficulties in landing new jobs but they also find it harder to acquire new skillsets.
They also face the perennial, and perhaps trickiest issue of workforce ageism – which requires addressing mindsets.
Social Safety Nets / Trampoline Structures
As President Halimah also rightly highlighted, it is important for us to concentrate our efforts to improve social safety nets.
Now at this point, I was pondering about Associate Professor Jamus Lim’s observations and suggestions on support to our needy Singaporeans. I agree that we must continue to work our hardest to help our needy Singaporeans and work must not stop. But the suggestion of having a single poverty line has inherent problems. It can have an unintended cliff effect, where those below the line get the support but those above, do not.
The line also misses out other issues that needy families face. For example, trying family circumstances, ill health and job readiness. It casts undue attention on just the financial circumstances of needy families.
Experience from other countries has also shown that it is hard to simplify to just one figure. And there’s a tendency for people who want to stay below the figure, not too many of them, but certainly, there are.
I fully agree that our poor need extra help. And we can do better. And we must do better.
Thus, our policies are shaped to give more to those who have less. Their needs are also complex, therefore we have many assistance schemes with different ways of helping with different outcomes. There’s also some sense in having separate criteria for different schemes. For example, ComCare is for poverty alleviation, supporting them in their needs, versus Workfare which is to help workers level up, tackling some inequality.
In my work as the Mayor of North East CDC, I’ve often hoped to simplify the 60 schemes that the North East CDC runs, but the more we work the ground, the more we realise that targeted solutions still work the best. And we cannot shy away from assessments, not only does it reflect our prudence and responsibilities to public resources, it allows us to size the assistance to the needy appropriately.
Therefore, an approach of providing support based on the varied needs of Singaporeans and their families might work better than a single poverty line. It is rigorous in its assessment and flexible to the needs of Singaporeans. I agree that documentation can be a burden. I struggle with that in my work at the CDC too and we must continue to make applications simpler. It is good for both SSO staff and applicants. With greater digitisation in the government, we can already see the benefits in streamlining and we will, I think, can do more on that front.
While we have different schemes with different criteria, what is most important is to make sure that while we streamline application processes, that the schemes are also effective. Our SSO officers work hard on the ground to do this. And I do feel, maybe I got it incorrectly, but the way that Associate Professor Jamus Lim characterized what they do, might not be entirely fair. They seek not to take away the lifelines of the residents they serve.
Our social service officers work hard to help our needy residents. I’m extremely proud of them and I knew a lot of them through the work in ComLink. In fact, many of them take on duties beyond what are required of them because of the multi-faceted issues facing lower income families.
I certainly know my Tampines and Sengkang SSO officers, they build strong relationships with our ComLink families, testimony to the dedication and good work.
And I acknowledge that there will always be gaps in our schemes. With their families or residents who need help in the North East district, which includes Sengkang, I will do my best to help them as Mayor of North East CDC. We must not forget that helping more, which we must do, also requires that we earn more to pay for it. It’s easy to say to do more, much harder to pay more. Good growth, good jobs and good wages are clearly important to helping needy residents better and more sustainably.
In our new social compact and strategy, we hope to mobilise more support from all our communities, corporates, charities, volunteers, and philanthropists. I have seen how corporate donors went from just pure financial support to volunteering personally to solve on-the-ground problems.
Our North East CDC WE CARE programme supports thousands of families, above the ComCare’s financial qualifying lines. It was funded by donations from religious organisations, such as temples, churches and mosques, and funds from the CDC. Only when we own the problems and solutions, can we do more and build a stronger Singapore.
I would like to suggest a couple of areas of focus to help our Singaporeans to be able to rebound from tough times in two distinct phases: pre-loss of jobs, and post-loss of jobs.
Firstly, on the pre-loss of jobs.
We are now experiencing a tight labour market.
With the tightness, the median gross monthly income increased by $400 in 2022.
However, such a tight labour market also creates an environment whereby future-proofing opportunities may be put in the backseat.
In this volatile economy, the key is to reskill to remain relevant in the workforce and to keep abreast of the changes.
AP Funding
The first suggestion that I have is we can help employers to allow workers to reskill while being gainfully employed. One of the ways is to increase absentee payroll (AP) funding and the overall $100,000 annual cap for companies.
This will allow companies to send workers for training while being subsidised for such costs.
The costs of hiring temporary staff or replacement staff are increasing. The related costs of hiring and onboarding staff are also not insignificant.
Hence, we can consider increasing AP funding support based on the age of employees, with older workers receiving greater support.
Workers in vulnerable and sunset sectors can also be considered for enhanced AP support.
Currently, there is a fixed level of support for SSG-funded certifiable courses at $4.50/hr. The organisation’s cap is also limited to S$100,000 per calendar year.
We should increase the $100,000 cap considering the increase in overall business costs. Companies sending a larger number of mature workers for training should also qualify for a higher cap.
Companies will be incentivised to hire mature workers, and our mature workers will be incentivised to train.
Post-loss of Jobs
Next, on improving the post-loss of job support.
Firstly, we can introduce unemployment support for workers who are involuntarily forced to leave their jobs such as retrenchment. Something my colleague, Member of Parliament Mr Patrick Tay has mentioned.
This support can be linked to training and job search to preserve the work ethos of the workforce. This builds on the principles behind our Workfare and Covid Recovery Grant. These are important Singaporean policy characteristics.
We must not forget that the longer one stays out of the workforce, the poorer employment outcomes will be.
Thus, our system of unemployment support should taper off with time to ensure that individuals remain incentivised to re-enter the workforce.
Next, we can also enhance the Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs).
We should increase allowance and income support during the conversion process as workers will still need to care for their families.
We can also extend enhanced CCPs to our SEPs. Many SEPs are in the profession because of their need for more discretionary income. Some of them do want to go into other careers, hopefully more permanent ones.
The next move that we can make is to extend Career Trials to SEPs. Currently, SEPs would not be eligible for Career Trials under the existing eligibility requirements.
Could the government look into expanding the eligibility of Career Trials and for those considering a job switch to undertake formal employment?
While training and reskilling is an important feature of the nation’s work ethos, it may be demoralising for workers to continually to train but are unable to secure employment.
This is especially so for older workers whose runway is much shorter.
While we cannot completely remove such risks, we can moderate the risk by having more Place-and-Train programmes. We can do so starting from the public service ecosystem, including the suppliers to the public service.
More outreach efforts to potential host companies could be undertaken to increase the scope of such programmes and the Labour Movement stands ready to assist.
Mr Speaker, please allow me to continue in Chinese.
今时的工作环境与过去大不相同。 经济转型速度会日益加快。随着地缘政治风险日益动荡，我国与劳动队伍难免也会受到影响。
我们得积极加强社会安全网，让国人在人生中的每个阶段都有信心向前走。
我们能通过推动与加强培训计划，以便确保国人能够拥有所需的技能，掌握就业机会。
对变化反应相对较迟缓的工友和企业，他们将会受到最大的冲击。
因此，我们得为失业前后的工作环境做好准备，以便国人能从艰难时期敏捷地反弹，抓紧工作机会。
对于失业者, 我希望政府会协助他们在失业的期间接受培训计划（例如我们的职业转换计划 – Career Conversion Programmes）。在这期间，我也呼唤政府提高对失业者的津贴。
就业机会仍然是改善人民生活素质的关键。 政府和工会会尽最大的努力帮助国人实现这个目标。并且确保全国人民都不会被遗落，大家一起携手同行，创造更美好的未来！
Conclusion
Mr Speaker Sir,
Over the years, we have continued to strengthen our social safety nets.
With an increasingly volatile global economy, we must help Singaporeans cope with the uncertainties, and enable us to have the confidence to forge ahead.
Good growth, good jobs and strong social safety nets are key to helping Singaporeans navigate the vagaries and vicissitudes of a rapidly changing economy.
I support the Motion.
