It is heartening that more than 46,000 workers have secured new jobs with the help of the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) since the Covid-19 pandemic hit Singapore two years ago. These workers were placed in new jobs from February 2020 to December last year. It came after the NTUC's Job Security Council was set up to help displaced workers or those at risk of losing their jobs move to new roles or secure temporary secondments. Matching workers back to jobs is not easy, but it is also reassuring that 266 companies have completed road maps that have helped them transform their businesses and adopt technology to meet market needs.

Matching workers and jobs requires the sustained efficiency of an economic ecosystem which effectively aligns workers' training with a company's transformation efforts. Clearly, given the ebbs and flows of the labour market, which have been pushed to new extremes by the dislocation produced by the coronavirus pandemic, it is essential for firms to prepare and chart new directions so that work practices can be transformed in turn to meet changing market demands head-on. Workers, on their part, need to engage in a process of continuous retraining that equips them with the necessary skills so that they ride the next transformation wave smoothly. Indeed, 811 company training committees, which identify skills that workers need to keep up with industry transformation and curate relevant training for them, have already been set up. However, this figure is still less than the NTUC's initial target of forming training committees in 1,000 companies in the three years after the initiative was launched in April 2019. Clearly, more companies must seize the opportunities being made available if they want to stay relevant and competitive.