Companies Focus More on Career and Personal Progression of Their Staff

The Ministry of Manpower today issued its Employment Situation report for the fourth quarter of 2009 (4Q2009). With the economy firmly on the recovery track, job creation continued to rise as unemployment shrank. Total employment is estimated to have grown by 38,700 in 4Q2009, much higher than the gains of 14,000 in the earlier quarter.

For the whole of 2009, total employment jumped by 38,800 as job gains in the second half of the year more than offset the losses in the first half. With the strong employment growth, unemployment improved significantly to 2.1% in December 2009 from 3.4% in September 2009.

The bulk of employment gains came from services, which added 32,100 workers in 4Q2009. According to Robert Half Singapore, this was supported by hirings within the finance sector, boosted by increasing demand for permanent hires as companies recognise their importance in riding out a downturn. Robert Half also observes that organisations are now also looking to invest more heavily in the personal and career progression of their employees as they seek to retain their best people amid the fast-recovering job market.

The following are comments by Mr Tim Hird, Managing Director of Robert Half Singapore.

Singapore employees recognise the importance of a global workforce but are not adequately trained for it, according to a survey by recruitment agency Kelly Services.

Nine in ten workers agree that being more globally oriented in the way they work is important for their career prospects. Over 3,000 workers in Singapore responded to the survey.

However, figures show that the younger generation is not well-equipped with the skills to deal with a diverse work environment. Only 69% of the Gen Y respondents (18-29 years old) felt that they have the skills to work with people of different nationalities and cultures, as compared to 88% of the Gen X (30-47 years old) and 86% of the baby boomers (48-65 years old).

“Generally, older employees have greater exposure and working experience in their fields. Hence, they are more equipped to interact with their foreign counterparts from different countries and cultures, whereas Gen Y employees are still in the early stages of their career and need to build a more solid foundation in the workplace,” explains Asia Pacific Senior Vice-president of Kelly Services, Mr Dhirenda Shantilal.

Also, 52% of the respondents said that they are not receiving the training they need to deal with other cultures. This makes Singapore fall behind other Asian countries like India (34%), Malaysia (41%) and Hong Kong (50%) in terms of preparing workers for a global workforce.

Over the past few years, the government has repeatedly urged Singaporean workers to undergo further training to cope with a rapidly evolving economy in the face of globalization and technological advancements.

Policymakers can now sleep easy with the knowledge that Singaporeans have internalized the message.

For every six Singaporeans, five believe that they need to upgrade their skills within the next five years in order to stay relevant, according to the Kelly Global Workforce Index, a survey conducted by Kelly Services in December 2008.

“The survey reflected a strong desire for most employees to upgrade themselves to keep up with the dynamics of the competitive global market,” said Mr. Dhirendra Shantilal, Senior Vice-President (Asia Pacific) of Kelly Services.

In line with employer-managed schemes such as the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR), 81% of Singaporeans further believed that employers should share the responsibility for their skills-upgrading training.

However, it was also found that 47% of Singaporeans believe their employers to have failed to provide adequate training, and 48% think that their HR departments have likewise failed to help them achieve their employment goals.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Manpower announced an update to the Tripartite Guidelines on Managing Excess Manpower, together with its tripartite partners, the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

The guidelines, first announced on 19 November 2008, are to advise companies on how to cope with the economic recession. Since then however, GDP growth has been worse than expected and unemployment has plunged from 2.2 to 3.2 percent, prompting a need for more aggressive and flexible recommendations.

The changes include elaborations on government schemes such as Jobs Credit and Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR), and more significantly, updates to guidelines on cost-cutting measures:

1. Shorter work week
Non-working days can be up to three days a week, not exceeding three months, up from two days a week and two months previously.

2. Flexible work arrangements
Companies can implement part-time work, sharing of jobs and flexible work schedules by applying for exemptions from the Employment Act.

3. Salary cuts
Companies may implement more aggressive salary cuts by converting up to 10 percent (or more for managerials) of an employee’s existing basic salary into Monthly Variable Components (MVC).

4. No-pay leave
Companies may implement no-pay leave after exhausting other measures.

Vice-president of SNEF, Mr Bob Tan, acknowledged that these changes may hurt the pockets of employees. He said, “Workers don't earn a lot of money. So if they have no-pay leave, they've got to find other ways and means of earning a living...

Figures released by MOE show that fresh business management graduates from SMU were paid S$2,800 on average (median) last year. In comparison, it was reported in today's papers that their counterparts this year will happily accept job offers with a monthly salary of only S$2,000.

The whopping $800 drop in pay expectations is evident of the dire job prospects facing this year’s graduating cohort of 12,000 university students. Should their employment rate drop below that of the 2003 cohort, more than 1,000 of them will not be able to find a job even after six months.

This reality is causing graduates to consider alternative career plans. For instance, interest in entrepreneurship has increased, especially with SPRING having launched a Young Entrepreneurs Scheme to support business start-ups run by those under 26. Recent newspaper reports have shown others to be giving tuition or dabbling in hobbies such as performing magic.

Nonetheless, all this is fair and well in the eyes of NTUC chief Mr. Lim Swee Say, who was quoted as saying, "One door will lead to another and you never know where life will take you to. If you give your very best ... any job (which) may not come across as a dream job can turn out to be better than your dream job."

In Departures, the Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars, an aspiring Japanese musician is forced to abandon his skepticism, and eventually finds his calling in performing funeral rites. Likewise, if you keep an open mind and take The Road Less Traveled, you may discover springs of passion in previously unexpected places.

Exactly half of Singapore workers are willing to sacrifice their pay for more meaning in the work they do.

This is according to the Kelly Global Workforce Index, a survey conducted by Kelly Services in December 2008.

Said Mr. Dhirendra Shantilal, Kelly Services’ Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific, "This survey once again affirms that pay is not the only key factor to attract and retain talent, even in tough economic conditions."

Interestingly, while 60% of Baby Boomers (those aged 48-65) are prepared to forgo salary and position for more meaningful work, only 47% of Gen Y (those aged 18-29) workers are willing to do so.

In addition, the survey found that 84% of Singapore workers are proud of the work they perform, while 78% feel that it raises their self-confidence.

So we have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, our GDP between -2% and -5% for this year, and retrenchment anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that more than half of our graduating university students said that they were afraid of graduating in a recent poll.

Perhaps they can be forgiven for feeling terribly unlucky. Some have even been fired before getting hired, thanks to employers who are withdrawing job offers made in rosier times.

But is the present really so frightening? Can it compare to the prospects faced by newly independent Singapore when we had hostile neighbours, internal political turmoil, withdrawal of British troops accounting for 20% of our GDP, epidemic unemployment caused by population explosion, and subsequently the shock to our fragile economy posed by the 1973 oil crisis? READ MORE