Workforce Developments

A Week in Singapore, part 5

Friday: Performance outcomes and links

Yes, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency has to deal with their own pesky outcome requirements too. Some key figures for 2006: 

• 98,000 workers received skills upgrade training
• 22,125 workers were placed in jobs, with a 62% retention rate after three months
  
• 4,400 were placed in jobs via skills conversion programs, with a 50% retention rate after three months

More details can be found in the WDA's annual reports and other publications.

These two photos capture part of what makes Singapore such an interesting place: downtown highrises, beside day-to-day workers just trying to make ends meet. Again, is their country really so different from the U.S.?

My thanks once more to Mohd Latiff Bin Rahmat and Jenny Lee of the WDA for their time and assistance.

Want to learn more about Singapore? There are tons of other resources online where you can read more about Singapore, whether you're interested in official statistics, the National Trades Union Congress, or the Ministry of Manpower. You can get general info from Wikipedia or the CIA's World Factbook. You can also find specific information about organized labor, politics, literature, blogging (also check out this story, out earlier this week), tourism, the award-winning Changi Airport, and of course, the country's diverse and amazing cuisine (or here or here). And finally, a shout-out to Singapore Airlines - great staff, great service, and for an airline, pretty darn good food.

Here's a quick recap of A Week in Singapore:

Monday: Welcome to Singapore
Tuesday: Introducing the Singapore Workforce Development Agency
Wednesday: WDA funding and access
Thursday: Workforce development models to explore
Friday: Performance outcomes and links

To read the full week's posts, just click here.

A Week in Singapore, Part 4

Thursday: Workforce development models to explore

Two initiatives of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency offered models I think are worth exploring here in the U.S.

Place and Train  The Singapore WDA's Place and Train (PnT) program is designed around key industry sectors, including aerospace, nursing and construction. Employers play a key role in this program.

What made me sit up and take notice about PnT is that employers commit in advance to hiring the workers who are trained through this WDA program. Here in the U.S. I've seen plenty of good workforce development programs whose partnerships with employers falter on this key point. Employers say yes we'll partner with you, we'll help you develop the training curriculum, but we won't commit to hiring the people you train.

Latiff and Jenny told me that in the PnT program, employers are involved in screening potential workers at the front end of the process. They described one WDA-run job fair where retailers conducted job interviews on site. Some workers were hired on the spot. Others who had potential but lacked certain skills were referred to WDA for training. After the training, those workers were hired. Is this a model we could use here in the U.S.? If you think it might be, you can read descriptions of PnT programs by industry on the WDA website. It's worth noting that the WDA also pays a portion of the worker's wage while she or he is in training.

Older Workers  As the Singapore workforce grows older and birth rates decline, the total workforce is shrinking (see the Population Age Pyramid on the right). Today the WDA is putting more emphasis on preparing older workers to keep working more years, or to return to the workforce after retirement. The National Trades Union Congress of Singapore is playing a key role in convincing companies to hire more older workers.

Part of this means working with employers to help them adapt their practices and workplace environment to the needs and skills of an older workforce. Through its ADVANTAGE! program, the WDA provides grants to employers to make changes to the workplace that will help them recruit, retain and re-employ older workers. Those changes can include restructuring wage scales, instituting non-discrimination policies, redesigning medical benefits so older workers aren't put at a disadvantage, and skills upgrade training. One major issue is that many older Singaporeans don't have the same English language skills or technology skills of their younger counterparts. Grants to employers are based on the number of older workers to be recruited or retained, and/or the total cost of the project.

I'd say that's rather more comprehensive than DOL's Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP).

(Quick side note: The cover story for this week's Economist is How to deal with a shrinking population. I don't agree with all their analysis, but clearly, this is an important issue worldwide.)

---As in the U.S., there's a growing awareness in Singapore that job training isn't a one-time event, but a lifelong endeavor. Technological changes and an ever-more globalized workforce means that to be competitive, companies need a well-trained workforce, and individual workers constantly need skills upgrades. While in Singapore I learned that our countries have much in common, and that our workforce development systems face remarkably similar challenges.

Tomorrow, final words and links for more info on Singapore.

To read the full Week in Singapore, click here, or on Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

A Week in Singapore, part 3

Wednesday: WDA funding and access

The Singapore Workforce Development Agency is funded primarily through two sources. S$88 million (~US$58 million) in interest is earned on the Lifelong Learning Fund, a S$2.2 billion endowment set up by the Singapore government. S$80 million (~US$53 million) comes from the Skills Development Fund (SDF), through a per-employee levy on all employers. Employers must pay up to S$2,000 (~US$1,320) per employee into the SDF.

Yesterday I explained the Continuing Education and Training (CET) system, where individual Singaporeans can access job training. Employers can also access training for individual workers or groups of workers, through the SDF. Those funds are available to employers who need to upgrade workers skills, to make adjustments to jobs, to make the company more competitive. The employer goes to a certified training provider, then applies for partial reimbursement from the WDA. That way, both the government and business invest in the worker.

It's not a free ride. The employer is responsible for training completion and retention of trained workers. If an employee doesn't complete the training, the company may have to pay back the WDA. Furthermore, the WDA pays its reimbursement in installments, and if a worker isn't retained for at least three months after training, WDA won't make the final payment for that worker's training.

Individual employees can go to their employer and request upgrade training. The employer then goes to the WDA to make arrangements. This subsidy makes it possible for large, medium and small employers to access training for their incumbent workers.

Where do Singaporeans go for training and job search assistance if they're unemployed? To the Distributed CareerLink Network, with five locations throughout the island, plus one in the NTUC building, where the WDA is headquartered. These CareerLink Centres provide a range of services, similar to what you'd find at an American Career One-Stop Centers.

In the case of training for unemployed individuals, the WDA pays its subsidy the CET-approved training provider directly.

It's not possible to describe all the WDA's programs here. Their website is full of good information and lots of details. They have some very detailed career guides online, which you can find on this page.

Tomorrow, I'll tell about two initiatives I think the American workforce development system could learn from. First is the WDA's very interesting Place and Train (PnT) program. Second is Singapore's approach the challenge of an aging and shrinking workforce.

For Part 1 of A Week in Singapore, click here; for Part 2 click here.

A Week in Singapore, part 2

Tuesday: Introducing the Singapore Workforce Development Agency

I met with Mohd Latiff Bin Rahmat (left) and Jenny Lee (right) at the WDA's headquarters in the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) building. Jenny and Latiff walked me through the key elements of the WDA's programs, which I'll try to summarize here. They've promised to provide comments if I get anything wrong.

While Singapore funded a variety of job training and employment programs through different government agencies over the years, the WDA was established in 2003 within the Ministry of Manpower.

Mission: Enhance employability and competitiveness of our workforce.

Vision: A mountain range of successes for Singapore

When the WDA was founded, Singapore was in the midst of an economic downturn. Today the economy is much stronger, with 176,000 new jobs created in 2006, and a current unemployment rate of only 2.9%.

WDA's Continuing Education and Training infrastructure is made up of three key areas:

1. Employability Skills System (ESS), providing "generic and portable" skills. What we'd call "soft skills" training.
   
2. Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ), providing skill upgrades within specific industry occupations. They focus on industry sectors that are important to the economy and have high labor demand.
   
3. CET Institutions, which are the many different private nonprofit and for-profit institutions the WDA partners with to provide training.

ESS has identified ten key employability skills and offers training through more than 20 partner institutions. Through its ESS, the WDA is also working to develop something that looks to be the equivalent of our GED. Singapore follows the British secondary education system. After finishing school, students take exams, and can pass with an "N-level" or the higher "O-level." If you don't pass this exam, you'll have a hard time landing a good job. The WDA is working to get companies and training agencies to recognize ESS training as a legitimate alternative to N-levels and O-levels. And they're having some success. The Singapore Civil Service recognizes it, as do ExxonMobil Asia Pacific and Carrefour Singapore, among others.

Through the WSQ they've established sector-based Industry Skills and Training Councils that include employers, to develop standardized skills competencies or "frameworks" for each sector. Then they work with private nonprofit and for-profit training providers, who actually conduct the trainings. Twelve have been completed so far, in retail, finance, precision engineering, tourism and others. The WDA is currently working on WSQ Frameworks in, among other sectors, aerospace, human resources and creative industries.

WDA focuses its work on four key outcomes:

1. Support industry growth
2. Bridge the structural skills gap
3. Raise industry standards
4. Employability for low-skill workers

It's impossible to talk about the WDA without mentioning Singapore's National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which partners with the WDA on a wide variety of programs. It's made up of 63 trades unions, and some 460,000 members. The NTUC is closely aligned with the governing People's Action Party, and its head is a cabinet minister. I've heard a joke that ever-bargain-conscious Singaporeans (more proof of how alike we are?) join the union primarily in order to get the NTUC discount shopping card.

Tomorrow I'll explain how the WDA is funded, and explain a little about how employers and workers access WDA-funded training.

Click here for Part 1 of A Week in Singapore.

A Week in Singapore

Monday: Welcome to Singapore

I recently visited Singapore on other business, and while I was there took the opportunity to meet with officials of the country's Workforce Development Agency. This week on Workforce Developments, I'll tell you what I learned.

Let me start with some background info.

At first glance, you might think Singapore isn't much like the U.S. They're a small city-state in Southeast Asia, while we cover a large chunk of the North American continent. There, the entire island's weather is pretty much the same year-round. Here, you can drive through different weather patterns in the same day. Compare some other key stats: 

As you look more closely, you'll begin to find some interesting commonalities. To begin with, we're both relatively wealthy countries, and we're both predominantly immigrant nations.

Singapore's original residents were an ethnic group known as the Orang Laut. By the time Sir Stamford Raffles arrived bearing the flag of England and the East India Company there were already significant numbers of Chinese and Malay living there. Today Singapore is predominantly Chinese (77%), Malay (14%) and Indian (8%), plus several smaller groups, including Peranakans, Eurasians and Europeans. By comparison the U.S. is 75% white, 15% Latino, 12% African-American and nearly 5% Asian/Pacific Islander (2005 American Community Survey).

English is the language of business and is taught in schools, but the country has four official languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay. Everywhere you go, official signs and notices are in all four languages. Major advertising is largely in English, but you'll see plenty of signs in other languages as well.

You'll notice the home ownership rate in Singapore is quite high. Most of these are apartments (flats) in government-developed housing estates that combine homes, businesses and social services (see photo at top). Living in public housing in Singapore isn't about poverty. Many people were relocated to these flats as part of a controversial drive in the 1970s and 80s when the government tore down traditional shophouses (see photo at left) and other old buildings where many people lived. Today there are efforts to maintain the old architecture.

About 40% of the Singapore workforce works in the service sector, and 18% in manufacturing. Major industries include petroleum refining and other oil-related industries, ship repair, food processing, financial services and entrepot trade.

The Singapore workforce is becoming better-educated and more highly skilled, but as in the U.S., as the population ages and birth rates fall, the workforce is shrinking.

Out of a workforce of 2.5 million people, one million are "non-resident" migrant workers. As in the U.S., a large share of the immigrant workforce is low-skill, low-wage workers. What's the government's position on migrant labor? I asked.

"We need them," said Mohd Latiff Bin Rahmat, Deputy Director in the WDA's Corporate and Marketing Communications Division. I met with both him and Jenny Lee, Manager in the same division.

Tomorrow, I'll report more on what I learned from Latiff and Jenny.