REACH 121 - Changing job landscape beyond covid-19 (SK)

1 Aug 2020 (2pm - 7pm)

REACH

[1:58 pm, 11/08/2020] +: Dear contributors,

Welcome back! 😊

⏰ We will be opening chats from 2pm to 7pm today.

🗒 REACH is constantly taking note of all the feedback and suggestions shared on our WhatsApp chats, and will send them to relevant authorities for consideration.

Please be reminded to be respectful and considerate to others in this WhatsApp chat group. 🙏🏼

- Megan

REACH

[2:00 pm, 11/08/2020] +: 📢 Topic 📢

Singapore will not return to a pre-COVID-19 world and must chart a new path by building a new economy now, says Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing. This comes on the back of news that Singapore suffered a deeper recession in the second quarter.

"Recovery will be uneven across sectors. Some sectors will progressively recover, while others will be permanently changed," he adds. 

👉 https://str.sg/Jhwh

Manpower Minister Ms Josephine Teo also said that during this period of great volatility, the key is to try and help companies to retain as many workers as possible. 

She said the Manpower Ministry welcomes the Singapore Business Federation’s call to all businesses to explore all cost-saving measures and make retrenchment the last resort. If the only way is to retrench, they must conduct the exercise with fairness and a sense of dignity to workers, and try to retain a strong Singapore core.

She said the Government has been able to reach out to different employers and training providers, and have curated 92,000 short-term and long-term opportunities. Half are Government funded (heavily subsidised traineeships and attachments and hiring that has been brought forward by Government agencies). Slightly below half are those by the private sector.

👉 https://str.sg/JhwX

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[5:29 pm, 11/08/2020] ☸️  Danny 心: 

My close friend contribution :-

Job market virtualisation is a reality and happening very fast.

Foreigners can work on sg project from their homes in a foreign land. Similarly, Singaporeans should be brave to take up overseas project/assignments and work from sg home. Gone are the days to expect travel perks, subsidies and allowances for such jobs. 

A persion I know is now working on an Australian assignment from Singapore. She lament how different it is from her seniors who got to travel when such opportunities arise. But times are different.

A friend in her fifties who was lockdown in Australia asked head hunters to profile her for project manager post managing projects in US/Canada and having to work with counterparts from several countries. People who are brave will stand better chance to survive.

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[5:35 pm, 11/08/2020] ☸️  Danny 心: 

Just to share some experiences :-

(1) I have come across someone who is working in the tourism sector - where the business is primarily cater to foreign tourists and the minority are for locals.

(2) The business is very good and many are employed for the jobs.

(3) However, when the covid hit, business plunge dramatically as there are hardly any foreign tourists arrive and locals mainly stay at home.

(4) It end up more than half of the staff are retrenched as business can barely survive.

(5) Out of job, the person switch to healthcare - to become a healthcare assistant - working for a Government restructured hospital.

Another example :-

(1) A person work in IT mainly bidding for projects in large scale IT infrastructure.

(2) However, with the advent of cloud infrastructure that are mainly provided by Telcos, Cloud service provider, emerge AI, robotics and IoTs etc - large scale IT infrastructure projects dwindle drastically.

(3) Quite a number of highly skilled IT staff are retrenched. 

(4) The person after finding difficulty in finding similar IT jobs after quite sometimes - decide to switch to finance sector - to do fund managment.

(5) The person is currently doing very well in the new sector.

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The above lessons demonstrate that - we must be versatile and must be willing to switch careers when we are disrupted by disruptive tech, virus pandemic or other circumstances.

Because under the Universal Law of Impermanence, "Change is Constant".

As long as we realise, understand and can accept this reality - we can adjust to survive and thrive.

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Alvin

[4:56 pm, 11/08/2020] +: 

A few food for thoughts for MTI/MOM on how to take our nation forward.

1) Quickly identify all Industry Verticals worst hit by the covid19 and assist to turn them Horizontals (without losing core expertise).

eg. Heavy Industry going into Infra/Mega Projects.

2) Open up to new ideas to boost multiple sectors with collaborations.

eg. Airlines and tourism "Air Cruise", Spa and tourism "Spacation".

3) Look at long term Mega Projects and plan accordingly.

eg. 4 to 5 years down the road, things would likely resume as per normal, what projects that we start now would benefit us later on?

4) Reorganizing and redistribution of labour and workforce.

eg. Allow on massive scale, companies who are doing well to "borrow" workforce from those who are hard hit (with almost similar skill sets), transferring the labour costs to them.

5) Reskilling for more sophisticated workforce takes vision and grit.

eg. Focus on a few sectors in emerging areas and ramp up training and industrial attachments for both freshies and oldies. Push companies who require specialized skillset to take in some of these newcomers (in exchange for approval of EP, etc), over the years they will become industry veterans.

6) Maintain and aggressively expand our status as Trade Hub.

eg. As other countries become isolated, we should instead use this as an opportunity to cut trade deals and other beneficial and meaningful concessions for both sides. We could be International Broker where everything passes through us, if we can play our cards right. I have faith and leave this daunting tasks to our MFA officials.

My 2.14 cents

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REACH

[7:00 pm, 11/08/2020] +: Hi REACH Contributors,

We will be closing the chat for today.

Thank you very much for being part of our WhatsApp chat and participating actively.

Good night!

Megan ☺

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