SINGAPORE – Students, seniors and stay-at-home mothers who want jobs would benefit from programmes designed to help them pick up additional skills.
The initiative, just one in a series of recommendations in a new report, would help address challenges in the local labour market, Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad noted on Oct 10.
“There remains a huge untapped pool of talent who would be willing to work if suitable opportunities are available,” he noted at the People Behind People Forum held at Sands Expo And Convention Centre at Marina Bay Sands.
He added that around 25 per cent of the 1.12 million residents who are outside the workforce are retirees, while another 25 per cent are aged 15 to 24, and 8 per cent have caregiving responsibilities.
“To address the labour market crunch, employers must look beyond existing talent pools,” Mr Zaqy said, referring to widening the hiring pool to take up hard-to-fill roles such as front-line retail jobs.
Developing programmes to attract talent was one of eight recommendations proposed in a report from the Alliance for Action (AfA) formed to increase talent competitiveness amid manpower constraints.
The recommendations were developed to tackle concerns arising from technological disruptions, like the rise of generative artificial intelligence and the changing expectations of a multi-generational workforce.
Mr Zaqy said the most critical area of the AfA is probably uplifting human resources (HR) capabilities, noting that more can be done to increase the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to HR advisory and consultancy services to help these firms “overcome barriers to adopting skills-first practices”.
Meanwhile, smaller firms would benefit from a “talent co-development” model where employees could take up temporary roles in other firms through joint partnerships. This would also give employers access to a wider pool