Singapore wants more locals to join and stay in “high priority” sector
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The Singapore government has announced plans to strengthen local human capital in the “high priority” information and communications sector.
In a speech last Wednesday, Minister for Manpower Lim Swee Say said the Lion City’s plan to maximize the economic and employment potential in the sector is grounded on three key areas:
- strengthen the Singapore core
- tap on global expertise to complement local expertise
- speed up the transfer of global expertise to local workforce
“[I]nfocomm offers good employment, now and into the future, here and globally,” he said.
To boost local employment in the sector, Singapore plans to help more locals join and stay in the industry. Lim noted initiatives such as the TechSkills Accelerator spearheaded by Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore and the expansion of the Professional Conversion Programmes headed by Workforce Singapore.
As part of this strategy, Singapore plans to help locals re-enter the sector and take on new careers, to re-skill former Infocomm workers, and to help existing sector professionals to continuously update their skills to remain employable in the industry, the minister said.
In terms of complementing this local core with global expertise, Lim said that Singapore will strive to prioritize complementarity and avoid substitution through the use of its Fair Consideration Framework. Citing a LinkedIn study, he noted the different strengths of Singapore’s local and foreign Infocomm professionals, with locals more skilled in social media, marketing and graphic design, and foreigners more skilled in data management and software engineering. He said Singapore aims to build collective expertise among locals and foreigners in the sector to stay globally competitive.
According to the minister, Singapore has an opportunity to become a leading “capability” hub in the emerging areas of exploitation and exportation of Infocomm. He said this can be achieved by speeding up the transfer of global knowhow to the local workforce.
During his speech, Lim noted the healthy employment growth in the sector. The minister said the sector’s 4.1% growth per annum from 2011 to 2016 outpaced the 2.6% national average growth across all sectors. Lim further cited the good quality of Infocomm jobs given that 80% are PMET level jobs and the median wage is 30% higher compared to the national median.
