Saving Livelihoods Amid the Pandemic

My tenure as the Chief Executive of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG),¹ from Dec 2019 to Nov 2021, coincided with much of the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, and was thus closely tied to SSG's contributions to help save livelihoods during the crisis.

The start of my tenure as CE, SSG saw the launch of the Next Bound of SkillsFuture, which included, among other things, a $500 top-up of the SkillsFuture Credit for every Singaporean aged 25 and above in 2020, and the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Support Package, which included another $500 top-up of the SkillsFuture Credit for Singaporeans aged between 40 and 60 in 2020. These schemes, announced at the Unity Budget in February 2020 to be made available from 1 Oct 2020, were moves to address the longer-term trends we were seeing in Singapore. Retirement ages were getting pushed back. Careers were getting longer. Jobs would be impacted by rapid technological changes. Taken together, we expected that every individual would experience multiple episodes of job disruptions in his or her working life. This would be particularly acute for mid-career individuals in their forties and fifties, who might not have the relevant skills and competencies to take on the new job roles being created in the rapidly changing economy.

Very soon after this milestone, COVID-19 started to take root in Singapore. The call went out to jobs and skills agencies to address the economic impact the pandemic was set to have on companies and workers. In SSG, we looked back to the last economic crisis — the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 — and reviewed the policy interventions from that time. From there, we quickly put together our Enhanced Training Support Package (ETSP), a series of measures to support companies in the anticipated economic downturn. The design of the ETSP was meant to incentivise companies to send workers for training during this downtime, so that they could be better positioned for the eventual economic recovery.

The ETSP was eventually announced in the government's Resilience Budget in March: its second Budget of 2020. We targeted companies in severely affected sectors, such as the tourism and food & beverage industries. For companies in these sectors, we raised subsidies for training course fees up to 90%. More importantly, we raised absentee payroll payments to all companies across all sectors, to 90% of the worker's basic hourly salary, up to a cap of $10 per hour: these were very generous terms. The scheme was also designed to favour the upskilling and reskilling of rank-and-file workers, who typically do not have as many training opportunities. Eventually, over 240,000 training places were taken up by the affected sectors from March 2020 to December 2021.

At the same time, we were under pressure to bring forward the use of our SkillsFuture Credit top-ups. The original activation date, 1 October 2020, was just too far away: affected individuals needed the credits urgently to attend courses during what was already a period of economic downturn. The real constraint to this was our IT infrastructure. We needed to re-program our systems to take in the SkillsFuture Credit top-ups, which were designed differently from the original SkillsFuture Credit scheme, and to disburse them properly to training providers.

Recognising the urgent need for individuals to be able to take up training as soon as possible, we worked with our universities, polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education, as well as NTUC Learning Hub, to accept the early use of the SkillsFuture Credit top-ups from 1 April 2020 onwards — even though our IT infrastructure were not yet ready for this transition. We would only be able to reconcile our accounts with these training providers after 1 October. Still, we pressed on. It was an extraordinary measure for an extraordinary time.

Even as we sought to scale up training in this period, COVID-19 measures came into effect, impacting how we could conduct training. First, Singapore's "Circuit Breaker" restrictions in April and May 2020 meant that no one could go out at all. This was then quickly followed by safe-distancing measures, including restrictions on how many students could take a class physically together. In SSG, we had to work out what essential training needed to carry on, to be granted exceptions from the various COVID-19 restrictions. We eventually determined that training for COVID-19 enforcement and related functions, as well as for severely affected sectors such as those supported by the ETSP, and training for job placement programmes, should proceed.

Even as we sought to scale up training, COVID-19 measures came into effect, impacting how we could conduct training.

E-learning and virtual classrooms became mainstream during this period. It was by no means smooth sailing for all: I remember feedback from older students who took time to get used to using Zoom for classes. There were also lower-income individuals with no access to laptops or other IT resources needed to access e-learning. To mitigate this digital gap, we worked with the then-Smart Nation Digital Government Office and Social Service Agencies, such as Engineering Good and TOUCH, to make refurbished laptops available on loan to trainees in need. We connected our SSG-funded training providers to these agencies so that other trainees who needed such support could receive it.

At that time, we had no idea that the COVID-19 pandemic would persist as long as it did. Our only prior reference was the SARS pandemic, which was fairly short-lived. Even the previous major economic downturns had been fairly short and did not warrant more and more interventions over time.

By April 2020, Singapore's economic projections were looking bad for the rest of 2020. The Government needed a scheme to put displaced workers on training. The shock was the scale of what was required of SSG: an estimated 100,000 individuals would need to be emplaced in training, with the scheme to be ready by June. Up till then, SSG-funded training courses across all of our programmes catered to about 500,000 trainees a year. To add 100,000 more training places in such a short amount of time was a massive undertaking.

This charge led us to create the SG United Skills (SGUS) programme, as part of the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package announced in May 2020 under the "Fortitude" Budget, the fourth and final Budget for the year. Thankfully, by that point, SGUS was not the only platform offering training places: the broader SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package also provided apprenticeships and job re-deployment opportunities. Our revised SGUS target was a lower but still significant 30,000 new training places.

SGUS was a turbocharged version of SSG's existing train-and-place programmes, put together over several online meetings with the SSG Planning Group. It was designed to be heavily subsidised and payable using SkillsFuture Credits, so there was essentially no out-of-pocket for the trainees. Beyond designing the scheme, the larger effort was to realise it on the ground. Since SSG does not offer training ourselves, our Training Partners Group sought out all of our training partners — from our Institutes of Higher Learning, our Continuing Education and Training Centres to other SSG-funded training providers — to come on board, put together the courses and offer training places. During that difficult time, every one of our partners stepped up to do their bit for Singapore as part of the SGUS scheme.

In particular, we worked with Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) to roll out two SGUS courses in Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics. Prior to this, SSG's interaction with SIM had primarily been in its capacity as a Private Education Institution offering degrees and other academic credentials. These two SGUS programmes were our first major Continuing Education and Training collaboration with SIM. Beyond skills content, the programmes also provided trainees with industry attachments and career preparation workshops to facilitate their re-entry into the workforce after the course.

We also developed a variant of the SGUS that partnered companies instead of training institutions. This had the added incentive of offering a higher training allowance of $1,500. I am particularly proud of our collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for their Rapid and Immersive Skills Enhancement (RISE) programme. The programme equipped close to 1,800 trainees with competencies in the areas of data analytics, digital sales and marketing, digital transformation and change management. The concept was to provide trainees with the skills and competencies to support companies embarking on digital transformation efforts. Through the partnership, we were able to tap on BCG's digital capabilities, learning ecosystem and network of client partners.

Eventually, more than 15,000 trainees were placed in jobs after going through the SGUS programmes and the company-led equivalent. Placement rates were very good at almost 65% of applicants.²

Many of these initiatives were initiated in 2020 and were implemented and refined well into 2021. Even as we were delivering these training schemes for Singaporeans' livelihoods, SSG was going through our own digital transformation efforts in moving to new public-facing IT systems, scaling up our engagement efforts with employers and individuals as part of the Next Bound of SkillsFuture, and even moving to our new office at Paya Lebar Quarters after years at One Marina Boulevard.

At the end of 2021, I had completed my tour of duty at SSG. All these efforts — designing and realising new training and upskilling initiatives at scale and at speed in response to a crisis — had made for a hectic, exciting and memorable tenure as CE. Given the clear impetus and need for action amid the COVID-19 pandemic, SSG stepped up as a team, standing shoulder to shoulder and doing our best to bring the SkillsFuture movement to bear in supporting Singaporeans' livelihoods and enhancing their employability at a time when it was needed most. It was a profound stress-test of the SkillsFuture movement, and of those tasked with driving it. What we and our partners accomplished together helped lay the groundwork for the ongoing transformation of Singapore's workforce that continues today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ong Tze-Ch'in was appointed Chief Executive of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) and concurrently Deputy Secretary (SkillsFuture) in the Ministry of Education in December 2019. He oversaw the rollout of the Next Bound of SkillsFuture in 2020 and guided SSG towards developing its annual skills report, with the inaugural edition — "Skills Demand for the Future Economy" — being published in 2021. Under the Next Bound of SkillsFuture, Tze-Ch'in led SSG in enhancing the role of enterprises in SkillsFuture, through strategic SkillsFuture Queen Bee partnerships. He also led SSG through the introduction of a number of COVID-19 related schemes and programmes.

Since November 2023, he has served as the Chief Executive of PUB, Singapore's national water agency.

NOTES

1. SkillsFuture is Singapore's national movement to promote the lifelong learning of skills. It is a key effort to help Singaporeans remain employable throughout their lifetimes.

2. SGUnited Skills and SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme-Company Training were launched on 3 Jul 2020 and 20 Jul 2020 respectively. Both programmes ended on 31 Mar 2022.

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