English
Singapore: Staying current in the future of work
SINGAPORE: Rapid technological disruption in recent years has caused disruption and decimation of jobs across industries, but it has also created new ones. The Covid-19 crisis has hastened the changes.
Reskilling has greater exigency than ever – and this is true for workers of all ages.
Job seekers who were displaced now will likely have to move into other roles within the same sector or into other sectors, which will require picking up new skills, said Jason Tay, director of enterprise programmes division at Workforce Singapore.
Global megatrends such as automation and new ways of working are eroding traditional skills and leading to job losses, said National Trades Union Congress assistant secretary-general Desmond Choo.
For example, workers are no longer needed to man assembly lines as production operations are automated. But they can learn to operate machines that oversee the automation process instead.
“It is critical that our workers acquire new skills – that is, reskill – or enhance their existing skill sets – which means upskilling – in order to adapt to these rapidly changing conditions, ” said Choo, who also chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Manpower.
Tay said reskilling can mean changing career paths to a new sector, but it could also entail a less radical move to a new job in the same sector, or a redeployment within the same organisation. This can bring different challenges, depending on an employee’s age. Younger workers may be able to easily adapt to a new industry and may not have major financial commitments. — The Straits Times/ANN