Introduction
Mr Deputy Speaker, the question before us is not whether our economic strategy points the right way. It is whether it reaches the worker who needs it.
That is the work of NTUC and NTUC’s e2i, connecting workers to jobs. Our youths who taking their first step. Our lower-wage workers. Our mature PMEs. And those who start further back than most.
Every worker matters. That has been my conviction since I first stepped into this House. The Economic Strategy Review gives us a clear direction, and our task now is to turn that direction into something a worker can feel.
Together with fellow Member, Mr Saktiandi, we co-chair the Committee for Economic Resilience, or Jawatankuasa Daya Ekonomi, for the MM community. Our job is to mobilise the community, so that these strategies become opportunities for our youths, businesses can scale further and higher wages for our workers.
We should be honest about our size. Our domestic market is limited, and we have to tap demand in our region and beyond. The global enterprises based here support a large number of local workers. They have been a source of innovation, management practices, and technology that helped our local businesses grow. They have also spurred the development of startups and new local enterprises.
What I want from our global enterprises and our local enterprises is the same thing. Stand by our workers. Help those who are retrenched bounce back with dignity. And help the rest become AI-ready before the change arrives, rather than after.
Today I will speak on three things.
First, supporting our lower-wage and mature workers
Second, building career clarity and safeguarding mental wellbeing as AI transforms our workplaces.
And third, strengthening pathways for our underserved communities and our youths.
Supporting lower-wage and mature workers
First, on supporting our lower-wage and mature workers.
When we talk about lifting the bottom, the conversation usually turns to where the floor should sit. That is a fair question, and I understand why it is asked.
But a floor on its own only tells a worker what the first rung pays. It does not tell him whether there is a second rung, or who will help him reach it. That is the thinking behind the Progressive Wage Model. It sets a wage, and it attaches a ladder to it, with training and a higher rate at each step, differentiated by different sectors. Cleaning. Security. Landscape. Retail. Food services. Waste management. Lift and escalator.
Each of those took years of negotiation, because wage floors do not rise on their own. And the work is still live.
Just last month, as Chairman of the Tripartite Cluster, I was part of the announcement extending the Progressive Wage Model to our pest management workers. Alongside it, the Local Qualifying Salary sets a floor for firms that hire foreign workers, and Workfare tops up the income and CPF of our lower-wage Singaporeans. Has it worked?
Last year, real incomes at the twentieth percentile grew by 3.8 per cent. Over the past decade, incomes at the twentieth percentile grew by 2.9 per cent a year, ahead of the 2.1 per cent at the median. And the ratio between what a worker at the twentieth percentile earns and what a worker at the median earns has risen to 0.55. That gap is narrower than it was in 2020, and narrower than it was in 2015.
Put plainly, over the past decade, workers at the bottom of our ladder have been climbing faster than workers in the middle. I will not pretend the work is finished. It is progressive, sector by sector.
And a segment of our lower-wage workers still sits outside these layers, many of them in platform and freelance work. We have made real progress there. The Platform Workers Act now gives our delivery riders and private-hire drivers CPF contributions, work injury compensation and formal representation.
But as that segment continues to grow, I would ask the Government to study how our wage and protection floors can follow the worker rather than the job title.
Behind every retrenchment statistic is a person. Often someone who has given decades of loyal service, and who is now unsure whether he or she still has a place in our workforce.
That is why NTUC set up the Job Security Council in February 2020. Managed by e2i, the Council supported more than 110,000 workers with job matching between 2020 and 2024. Let me be clear about what the Council is for.
Retrenchments edged up in the first quarter of this year, though the incidence remains within non-recessionary norms. In an economy that keeps restructuring, some displacement will happen. We should be honest about that. But the majority of these retrenchments came from business reorganising themselves and restructuring.
Firms are reshaping themselves, and they will keep doing so. So the test is not whether retrenchment happens. The test is what happens to the worker afterwards. And on that test, unemployment has held steady even as retrenchments rose.
The share of retrenched residents back in work within six months has also improved for a second consecutive quarter, to 60.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year. That does not happen on its own. We also watch closely whether the help actually works.
The Taskforce for Responsible Retrenchment and Employment Facilitation brings together MOM, NTUC, e2i, Enterprise Singapore, and SWDA, and it has tracked our outcomes carefully.
Between 2022 and 2024, about seven in ten retrenched workers who received career coaching from our agencies and e2i were placed within six months. The median time to placement over that period was around three months. Close to half of those placed came in at similar or higher wages than before.
And more recently, among workers who took up the Taskforce’s help before their last day of employment, about two-thirds were back in work within six months, better than the median for retrenched residents.
That is the case for reaching our workers earlier, not later. Numbers like these matter.
But let me tell you about one person. Mary Ho is a senior worker at Mandai Rainforest Resort. Through an agreement between the resort, e2i and the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers’ Union, she was offered a redesigned role suited to her needs.
What stayed with me was what Mary said herself. She was struck by how we had been involved at every step, making sure she was placed in a role that suited her. That is what personalised support looks like. Someone walking beside a worker until they land a job.
To reach more workers, e2i now runs 28 National Career Centres across Singapore, expanded since 2024. That brings career, training and employment support closer to where our workers already live and work.
Career clarity and mental wellbeing in the age of AI
Second, on career clarity and mental wellbeing in the AI age.
In my Budget speech this year, I shared the story of a mid-career worker who had completed several courses over three years. She showed me her certificates with some pride. Then she asked me a simple question. Had she upgraded in the right direction? I could not tell her the answer. Effort without direction creates frustration. Effort with direction builds confidence.
This is why I welcome the formation of the Tripartite Jobs Council. It brings our partners together to help workers reskill, and to help businesses redesign responsibly as AI reshapes our workplaces. For this Council to succeed, its work must reach workers where they already are. That means the trusted touchpoints on the ground, the very career centres and coaches that workers like Mary can turn to.
And the Labour Movement is not waiting. Through AI-Ready SG, we are already helping our workers, and we will continue to do so, especially our PMEs, our youths, to gain practical confidence with AI, while supporting businesses to redesign jobs responsibly. Our Company Training Committees or CTCs are where the real work happens. More than 3,800 CTCs have been formed, benefiting over 300,000 workers.
And AI is now the centre of gravity. About 31 per cent of CTC Grant projects supported this year are AI-related, up from about 17 per cent for the whole of last year. That is what turning technology into practical help looks like. Training that a worker can use on a Monday morning.
The anxiety here is real. The fear of being replaced. The fear of falling behind is scary. The fear of being too old to start again causes confusion. That anxiety does not stay at the workplace. It follows a person home, and it wears on their health.
I have long advocated in this House for a whole-of-society approach to mental wellbeing, including a motion I co-filed with fellow Members on this very subject.
At a recent Economic Resilience dialogue with businesses and youths, many have come forth and mentioned how important mental wellbeing is at a stage like this. The ability to have support matters to them. And that’s why the CER (Committee for Economic Resilience) will work closely with community leaders and businesses, to ensure we give support to our community.
As we equip our workers for an AI-enabled economy, our support must address not just their skills but their peace of mind. Only then can they face the future with confidence and clarity.
Strengthening pathways for underserved communities and our youths
Third, on strengthening pathways for our underserved communities and our young people.
The ESR focuses on strengthening lifelong learning, and on linking training more closely to employment outcomes. I welcome that. But I would add this.
Some workers start further back than others, whether because of their age, their background, or simply because they lack the networks that open doors.
Part of my role at e2i is to sharpen our focus on reaching these groups. Our lower-wage and mature workers. The aim is for our career services and programmes to be designed around their needs, rather than around our own convenience.
For our young people, clarity has to begin before they graduate and we will come forward to them at an earlier stage than before, ensuring that they have the right clarity and a pathway to go into areas and sectors that have been assigned in the ESR. A student who has stood inside a real workplace, and who has a mentor she can call, makes a very different first decision from one who is guessing.
This is why early career exposure and structured mentorship and internship matter so much. And we have many of those in the pipeline.
Sir, please allow me to continue in Malay.
In Malay
Tuan, laporan Kajian Strategi Ekonomi ini menyeluruh, dan ia memberi kita arah yang jelas untuk ekonomi masa depan. Bagi anak-anak muda kita, langkah pertama ke alam pekerjaan selalunya yang paling mengelirukan.
Menerusi NTUC Youth, ahli-ahli muda kita menerima bimbingan kerjaya dan pendedahan industri. Ada juga Program Bimbingan Kerjaya yang berstruktur, dengan lebih 400 mentor sukarela daripada lebih 20 industri, dan bagi ahli kita, satu bimbingan selama empat bulan.
Tujuan kita mudah. Supaya seorang anak muda tidak perlu meneka langkah pertamanya sendiri.
Ini melengkapkan kerja Majlis Pekerjaan Tripartit yang saya sebut tadi, dan juga Latihan Industri untuk Graduan, supaya anak muda kita disokong sepanjang peralihan pertama itu.
Inilah juga sebabnya NTUC menandatangani memorandum persefahaman dengan Yayasan MENDAKI pada tahun ini. Tujuannya untuk memperkukuh kemahiran pekerja Melayu/Islam, dan membantu lebih ramai daripada mereka mendapat pekerjaan dalam sektor yang sedang berkembang. Di bawah Bidang Tumpuan Keempat M3, NTUC, e2i, NTUC LearningHub, SWDA dan Institut Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat telah bekerjasama dengan MENDAKI.
Bersama-sama, kita telah membantu lebih 6,000 pekerja Melayu/Islam menerusi pesta kerjaya dan karnival kemahiran. Hampir 20 peratus daripada mereka meneruskan dengan bimbingan yang lebih mendalam.
Kini, apabila AI mula mengubah cara kita bekerja, kebimbangan itu juga terasa di rumah-rumah kita. Jadi izinkan saya memberi satu jaminan.
NTUC dan e2i sedia maju bersama pekerja Melayu/Islam kita, terutama anak-anak muda kita. Kita akan bantu mereka meningkatkan kemahiran, menyesuaikan diri, dan mendapat peluang pekerjaan yang bermakna, sama ada dalam syarikat global mahupun syarikat tempatan kita yang sedang berkembang.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, Sir, before I entered this House, I spent nearly 25 years as an educator. I learnt then that no one should be written off because of a label placed on them. Not the academic stream they were put in at school, and not the sector they happen to work in.
That belief still guides my work today. An economy of the future means an economy where every worker has someone walking alongside them, and a clear path forward. Whatever their age, their background, or their starting point.
It means that our national strategies, on AI, on skills, on enterprise growth, are only as good as how well they reach the worker who needs them. They will be judged in the career centres, in the union offices, and in the community partnerships where the real support is delivered.
Let us make sure that no one, no Singaporean is left to struggle alone in this journey of AI where clarity is needed the most. Because every worker matters.
Mr Speaker, I support this motion, as amended by Mr Edward Chia. Thank you.
