(From left) ST associate editor and roundtable moderator Vikram Khanna, UOB senior economist Alvin Liew, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, ASME president Ang Yuit, and NTUC deputy secretary-general Desmond Tan, at the roundtable on March 7. — The Straits Times
SINGAPORE: Reskilling and upskilling have long been national priorities for Singapore, but with a rapidly ageing society, the need to equip the workforce for the future has become more urgent than ever.
During a roundtable discussion jointly organised by The Straits Times (ST) and The Business Times on March 7, the panellists, including Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and National Development Indranee Rajah, discussed factors such as technological changes that have accelerated the need for an updated workforce in Singapore.
Indranee said emerging areas like digitalisation, sustainability and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI) have advanced quickly over the past 10 years.
“These are all things that both employers and employees have to grapple with. And hence the need to upskill, learn new and diverse skills has accelerated,” she said.
With such changes taking place, workers are also feeling the pressure, and some may have concerns about job security.
The panellists noted that the rise of AI is a major driving force in the need for upskilling the workforce, adding that the specific skills and competencies required to stay relevant might also have changed over the years.
President of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises Ang Yuit said: “First, we have got to understand that AI is advancing and evolving very rapidly. It is really important that we as a nation start to build up competency, depth and utilisation and get really comfortable with it.”
He added: “About 10 years ago, we were talking about digitalisation, and many companies were moving up along the digitalisation process. But with AI, the timeline is more compressed, and in just a year, so much has changed.
“It is at the right time that we’re looking at reskilling and having all these schemes to look into upskilling our workforce.”
Liew added that it is particularly important to focus on the older segment of the workforce.
He said: “What a person learnt 20 years ago may not be relevant in the current market, and therefore that reskilling process is also quite urgent.” — The Straits Times/ANN
