Skills Future / PMEs / Economic Restructuring of Singapore / Structural Unemployment

In the recent past, there have been news reports of how the Skills Future endeavor will help PMEs to upgrade their skills as the economy restructures. I feel it prudent to point out that these training courses might help when an employee is trying to move into a new role within his or her current organization where he or she has built up sufficient trust capital with colleagues or bosses. Perhaps, even the boss might recommend that she take on certain courses to be prepared for an upcoming role change. But what if the company folds due to competition from cheaper sources of production - Singapore's electronics manufacturing industry being an example.

The Skills Future scheme will not help when a person has been rendered unemployed due to such structural or cyclical changes in the economy when the demand in a particular industry has crashed. The only criteria that prospective employers are looking at are whether the candidate has got the relevant experience to take on a new role among other factors such as cultural fit and candidate's personal goals vis-a-vis the companies'. Even if one has the relevant training / qualification as requested in the job profile, he or she will not be considered, let alone be called for an interview.

Singapore being a small market that is dependent of external demand with limited number of jobs on offer, it then becomes a difficult task to gain employment as the Government has recently noted (less than 40% of PMEs getting hired back within 6 months). While Skills Future is a good initiative to re-tool the local population for the jobs in the future, it has to be complemented by an incentive to private industry to essentially hire new employees who might have transferable skills from other industries but will nevertheless require some on-the-job mentoring / training before they can fully contribute to the role. This could be in some form of grant to the private enterprise to offset the lower productivity in the initial months. Nevertheless, it is imperative that this loop be closed for the Government's objective of having a productive labor force (as against re-skilled but unemployed) come to fruition as the economy continually restructures to maintain its competitive advantage. It would be a win-win where the Government will also benefit from lower unemployment rates and a cross-trained local workforce that can contribute in multiple industries.