Employees in Singapore are uncertain of their job security as more companies embrace a digital transformation, says one study
According to the latest Randstad Workmonitor report, more than 80% of Singaporean employees feel they need to upgrade their digital skills in order to guarantee employability.
The digital shift in most Singaporean workplaces has employees worried about their job security as more organisations change their strategies in order to grow the business.
“This seems to have hit the confidence of employees in Singapore, with many stating that in order to guarantee employability in the future, they need to acquire more digital skills,” said the study.
“The Workmonitor results have clearly shown that employees understand that there is a strong lack of digital talent in the region and that they need to upskill for the future,” said Michael Smith, Randstad Singapore managing director.
“Government agencies in Singapore, are all looking to address this issue with initiatives to upskill their respective workforces. Employees would also need to be open to learning and constantly update themselves in terms of technologies and skill sets to stay relevant for the future workplace.”
He added that organisations are on the lookout for digitally skilled local talent, leading to “a gap within the talent pool for candidates with these skills”.
This was a sentiment echoed by the Monster Employment Index when they discovered that there’s a 25% growth in hiring in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector but there are not enough local takers.
Minister of Manpower Lim Swee Say said that the problem lies in the mismatch of skills, speaking at the TechSkills Accelerator Career Services Day.
Erman Tan, president of Singapore Human Resource Institute (SHRI), the ICT jobs may be “shoes that are too big to fill” with local talent, causing companies to bring in foreign workers to plug the manpower gap and leading to lower wages.
He told The New Paper that jobseekers and mid-career professionals should take advantage of government initiatives such as the Professional Conversion Programme should they wish to upskill.