Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong has called for a global shift in mindset with regards to upskilling workers and preparing employees for the future.
Speaking at the G20 summit on Sunday (15 November), the PM shared Singapore’s SkillsFuture program with other leaders during a working session on global economy, growth strategies, employment, and investment strategies.
“It will take years to bear fruit, but we hope to achieve a mindset shift – a shift where employers and society will value persons for their skills and contributions so that every worker and every person will make self-improvement and upgrading a way of life.”
PM Lee also said that G20’s Skills Strategy, which was signed in September, was a “critical and timely piece of work”. The Strategy urges employers to invest in quality staff training and increase demand for skilled workers. It also provides incentives to build and upgrade skills amongst the workforce.
Preparing workers for the future was “vital to inclusive growth,” the PM said, “for us to have our workers trained, educated and kept employable so as to avoid structural mismatches developing in the workforce, be it for youths or mature workers”.
“We need a deliberate strategy to drive skills, innovation and productivity, which have to advance in tandem.”
The PM used SkillsFuture as an example of this: through structured, modular training, workers can build their skills progressively and systematically, he said. This allows employees to plan a customised L&D schedule with assistance from career counsellors and psychometric assessments.
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