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Speech at Smart Tech at Marina Bay Sands - Ramky Learning Journey

Minister Lim Swee Say, Marina Bay Sands

Skills, training and development
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Afternoon.
  1. This afternoon, I would like to reiterate why it is important for us to be manpower-lean.
  2. In the last five years, we added more than half a million of jobs in Singapore - about 550,000. Out of this number of workers, half are local workers and half are foreigners. Over the next five years, the number of local workers is likely to be less than half of 250,000, maybe about 100,000. This sharp drop is largely due to the ageing workforce, because they belong to the baby boomer generation and are due to retire from the workforce. There will be a very severe shortage of local manpower and this implication is major.
  3. This is a real challenge – local workforce decreases and at the same time, demand increases. Concurrently, we are determined not to rely on foreign workers. The only way is to be manpower-lean – improve the quality so we can no longer depend on the quantity of jobs to drive the economy. Instead, enhance the quality of jobs to drive the growth of the economy in the future.   Hence, we are determined to spread this mindset of lean enterprises, industry, manufacturing, services.
  4. If we are not able to become a lean economy, the shortage of manpower will become a bottleneck. In the future, the economy may not grow because of this bottleneck.
  5. But if we able to become a manpower lean economy, that slowdown in the workforce growth should hopefully not slow down our economic growth because we compensate it with productivity growth
  6. That is the reason why we say in the future, we must move towards an economy of 1 + 2 = 3, with 1% growth in work force, 2% increase in productivity, to give us 3% growth in GDP.
  7. With this, MOM together with other sectoral agencies and NTUC, launched the Lean Enterprise Development Scheme (LEDS) in October 2015 to assist SMEs in the development of their capabilities, manpower and markets. SMEs will need to assess their need for automation, productivity and process job redesign change.
  8. I am glad to note that the industry response to becoming manpower lean has been encouraging. In slightly more than six months, the LED agencies comprising SPRING, WDA, e2i and STB have supported close to 600 lean projects involving over 600 companies, where they changed their business processes or redesigned jobs to be more manpower-lean or attractive to Singaporeans. 
  9. At the same time, we reach out to tripartite partners via e2i. The mission of e2i is to transform every job into a better job, transform every worker to be better workers, and match better jobs to better workers. e2i is doing a lot of work under the IGP (Inclusive Growth Programme), encouraging companies to redesign jobs especially for jobs that involve low-wage workers.
  10. Looking ahead, we need to get more SMEs to come onboard if we are to be manpower-lean as an economy as SMEs employ 70% of Singapore’s workforce and contributes to nearly half of our GDP. They are the critical success of in our transformation to be a manpower-lean economy.
  11. There are three things that SMEs can do in order to have a breakthrough:
  12. First - A business mindset change.
    Take for example – recently SIT and US-based Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) have come together and are in the midst of setting up a Lean Transformation Innovation Centre (LTIC). The mission of the Centre is to promote and drive “lean” thinking, “lean” practices and “lean” solutions among local enterprises, with a special focus on our SMEs. It will tap on the expertise and transfer the know-how of LEI and other leading institutions to Singapore and nurture in-house lean champions representing SMEs.
  13. Second – From capability development to capacity enhancement. By trying out new solutions, SMEs can skill-up new capability to enhance the capacity. Take for example, an SME can tap on SPRING’s Capability Development Grant (CDG) to purchase their first machine. However, this grant does not allow the purchase of subsequent machines. In this case, SMEs can approach SPRING to apply for the Automation Support Package (ASP) to enhance their capacity. This is important as it allows companies to skill-up and enhance their capacity.
  14. Third – Companies who are early adopters / pioneers in a sector who skill-up are able to speed up transformation through the industry. IDA has the Enhanced iSPRINT programme that looks to increase SME productivity with infocomm adoption and sector-wide transformation via piloting new sector solutions. Under this pilot, SMEs pay the remaining 20% of the amount to vendors of such solutions and IDA will reimburse the remaining 80% (capped at $1 million per SME) directly to vendors.
  15. Many SMEs are not aware of this programme. Things in Singapore are moving too fast and SMEs are having problems keeping up with the pace of change.
  16. This afternoon, I would like to convey this message - Becoming manpower-lean is no longer an option. For companies that are prepared to do so and take the first step, the Government will help you to adopt the new mindset and provide the necessary support to facilitate your lean manpower-lean journey. 
  17. With that, I wish you the very best.

    Thank you.