Upskilling vital for workers, but relevance and company support are key, say panellists

SINGAPORE - Upskilling workers, which has been in the national conversation for a few years, is an integral part of Budget 2025 measures, as the global economy and technology continue to shake things up.

But such a transformation of the workforce faces challenges, such as the willingness of companies to allow their staff to take time off from work for training, and the need to ensure that the training is relevant and also benefits the employer.

Mr Musa Fazal, Singapore Business Federation’s chief policy officer, said that the important thing is that “training shouldn’t be done for the sake of training”.

“We firmly believe that company-led training is critical and employers play a very important part in this,” he said.

“It benefits the employers in making sure that the training actually meets the job needs of that employer. It also benefits the workers because (they) want to go for training which results in wage increases or makes them more employable... across different types of job roles.”

Mr Musa was one of the panellists in a discussion organised by The Straits Times as part of The Usual Place podcast.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah and labour economist Walter Theseira from the Singapore University of Social Sciences were also on the panel, which discussed measures introduced during Budget 2025 to help workers upskill and reskill.

One of the measures is

a training allowance of $300 a month

for those who want to work while upskilling themselves on a part-time basis. It is an extension of the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme introduced in the previous Budget to support mid-career Singaporeans aged 40 and above in getting a significant skills reboot.

The Government is most concerned with the workers in this age group, said Ms Indranee.

She noted that those just coming out of school will be equipped with the latest knowledge and will be tech-savvy.

But it is those who have been working for some time and are used to doing things a certain way who might have issues, because their jobs might be changing as a result of technology and artificial intelligence.

“Then, they have to pivot or to switch to something else, or they have to learn how to do the same thing in a different way. Those are the ones (for whom) it’s more difficult, and they have to acquire new skills,” she said, adding that the previous Budget offered support for those who want to take up a diploma to further their skills.

Another way for workers to get ahead is to be trained in their companies, with Company Training Committees (CTCs) that bring union leaders and employers together to design and implement workforce upgrading plans.

Since the initiative started in 2019, the National Trades Union Congress has set up over 2,700 CTCs, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong noted in his Budget speech.

“SkillsFuture is one name, but it’s (really) multifaceted with different types of programmes to help the older, mid-career person who’s seeing their employment landscape change. It’s really to equip them and help them to find new jobs or new opportunities,” Ms Indranee said on the panel.

Associate Professor Theseira agreed that upskilling is vital for the middle-aged group of professionals, managers, executives and technicians, or PMETs.

“As long as they’re in stable employment, things are fine, but actually because of the pace of business change and disruption, they do face some job uncertainty. If something were to happen to their industry or role, if they’re out of their job, they actually may face a lot of difficulty pivoting and transitioning to a new job, new career. That’s actually a really big challenge,” he said.

But Prof Theseira also said upskilling is important for younger lower-wage workers, so they can move up the wage and skills ladder.

“You’ve got people in this group who might have somehow missed out on the opportunity to complete their formal education or go as far as they could have, maybe because of the pressure to find work to support their families,” he said.

He added that this group of workers should ideally get support within companies to continue upskilling.

Mr Musa also noted that there are other measures in Budget 2025 that try to tie workforce transformation with enterprise transformation efforts. These will simplify the application process for companies across various schemes.

The

SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant,

for example, will also provide higher funding support of up to 70 per cent for job redesign activities.

This new scheme can make it easier for companies to apply for these grants to upskill workers and make use of new tools at the same time, Mr Musa said.

Previously, he added, some businesses did face certain challenges in fully utilising them, because they had to apply to different government agencies for various grants separately.

Prof Theseira also cautioned against retraining for a particular job or industry which is currently ascendant, only for workers to realise that, by the time they have finished their training, the industry is on a downturn or has absorbed all the necessary manpower.

He offered the example of the tech sector in the last couple of years: When young Singaporeans graduated from tech courses in schools, they faced challenges in the job market despite being well-trained and highly skilled, as the situation had changed from when they first entered school four years ago.

“So, how do you balance this very specific job training versus general skills training?” he asked.

Prof Theseira brought up another issue during the discussion: Workers may feel that they do not have enough time in the course of their work for self-directed learning, as they still have to produce work for their employers.

“Could there be more support or perhaps a more regularised system for having study time for employees outside of just what the employer is directing them to study or train in?” he asked.

Ms Indranee said that is something the Ministry of Manpower has to look into. She added that “employees need to have the conversation with the employers”, and the employers also need to ask themselves if there is value in doing this.

“Because if my employee goes for this course and is going to come back and be able to add value, then it’s an investment of time I should be willing to make,” she said.

Mr Musa agreed: “It’s important for employers to buy into the idea of training, and that’s why employer-led training is quite important because then the employer knows that this is the kind of training that will actually support (it) in (its) enterprise transformation journey.”

He added that companies have to consciously choose to send workers for training to benefit their businesses over the medium to long term.