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The Straits Times May 2, 2007 (Prime Minister's Speech at May Day Rally: Highlights) TRAINING: Readying workers for 60,000 IR jobs In his May Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted three policies which have succeeded in improving workers' lives. All were due to creative ideas, careful planning, effective implementation and attention to details. Aaron Low reports SOME 60,000 jobs will be created when the two integrated resorts (IRs) open, and Singapore is making a special effort to train its workers to take them up. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted yesterday that the right training programmes were being put in place to ready workers for jobs as hotel managers, conference organisers, croupiers and others. But to do the job well, workers would need not only skills but also the right attitude towards service. That was what IR operators in the United States had told him. They said that beyond formal training, their staff needed to be able to make tourists feel welcome. 'It's the contact you had, the people who serve you, the people who take care of you, the people who make you feel welcome and then you say, 'This is nice, I feel pampered. Let's come back',' he said. Mr Lee said what Singapore workers might need to practise more were their smiles. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officers at Changi Airport had done well in this respect, as they made a special effort to smile whenever someone walked past them. 'So we are going to learn from them (and) incorporate service skills in all our training programmes,' he said. Observing that many countries could now boast of adult worker training schemes, he said the problem was that 'very few countries had done it well'. He pointed out that the Singapore Government had made lifelong learning a priority. It set up a Lifelong Learning Fund and the Workforce Development Agency (WDA). The latter partnered the labour movement, tertiary institutes and industry groups to set up specialised institutions to prepare workers for jobs in the new growth sectors. He gave workers this assurance: 'We will equip Singaporeans with the relevant skills, we will deliver courses, give the workers national certification, qualifications, make them more employable.' He also highlighted the efforts of Mr Max Chan, 36, who worked as a glass artist for 10 years but decided to upgrade his skills when the industry went into decline. Despite being weak in English, he got a diploma in multimedia production and attended a 3D animation course run by the WDA and the Media Development Authority. He now works at a 3D animation production house. Said Mr Chan, in Mandarin: 'I have always been interested in animation and when I saw WDA offering it, I went for it immediately. Now I am more confident about my abilities, despite just having N-levels.' WORKFARE: Social security net a result of long-term planning SOME 300,000 older, low-wage workers each got a hongbao of between $75 and $600 on May Day yesterday, thanks to the Workfare Bonus. This second tranche of the payout, part of a policy to help less-skilled workers hard hit by the widening income gap, cost the Government $140 million. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his May Day Rally speech that the successful scheme was the result of long-term planning by the Government, from as far back as 2000. Likewise, a lot of effort went into the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme, which was announced this year and is set to become a permanent feature of Singapore's social security system. WIS will supplement the incomes of workers earning $1,500 and less, and aged above 35. They are set to receive a top-up of up to $1,200 a year. 'It's not just giving away a lot of money... With Workfare, we put a lot of effort designing the scheme, working out every detail, thinking through what it is we want to achieve,' he said. For example, the Government had to decide on who should receive the WIS, whether the bonus should be credited as cash or into the CPF account, and how to help those without CPF contributions. 'The details are quite complicated. I think if we have an exam, most of us will fail, including most of the ministers, maybe even me,' he said, to laughter from the audience. Its aim: to help people work, encourage them to save and make the effort to take care of themselves. The scheme will be reviewed in three years' time. Mr Lee said he had tasked the Manpower Ministry to engage labour economists to study the scheme and look at how people react to it, and what needs to be tweaked. Cleaner Mumthas Beevi Muhamed, 38, who earns $600, received $400 in bonuses and will be spending the money on her three children's school fees. She said: 'Now that I am working full-time, I can depend on the Workfare money more regularly to pay off my debts.' May 2, 2007 WAGE REFORM: Cut pay gap between old and young further SINGAPORE has had some success in moving away from a system that pays higher wages based on the number of years a worker has been in the job. But more needs to be done if older workers are to remain employed, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday. Singapore has managed to reduce the maximum difference between the pay of a young worker and that of an older worker doing the same job from a ratio of 1.85 some 10 years ago, to 1.68 today. But that figure needs to go down further to 1.5 or less, Mr Lee added. He expressed concern that even at a ratio of 1.5, a typical worker in his early 60s would earn 50 per cent more than a worker in his 30s. 'That makes him expensive. So American companies are now retrenching older workers, not because they are not profitable, but just to save cost. Because you are too expensive, sorry, you have to go, I'm going to hire new ones, younger,' he said. Mr Lee also recalled Singapore's own experience, when banks retrenched large numbers of older workers starting in the mid-1990s during a period of consolidation. Local bank United Overseas Bank, for example, retrenched 400 of its senior clerical staff in 2001, many of whom had served the bank more than 25 years. 'I think this is avoidable and we should avoid this. So we must try hard to get our wage structure right. Bring the ratio down, make it results-based, competency-based, performance-based,' he said. He explained that the Government identified this problem way back in 1985 and since then, had been working with companies to make the shift from a seniority-based to a performance-based wage system. 'The more flexible our wage structure is, the more resilient our companies will be to changing market conditions and the easier it will be for our people to stay employable,' he said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access |