Analysis of Skill Gaps in Singapore

Singapore has a very good reputation in term of economy compare to other countries
in ASEAN. It has a highly developed and successful free-market economy. Most of
their people employed in the service industry, commerce, education and
administration. Based on Library of Congress (2006), 68.7 % of the labor force is
worked on services sectors. Few are in manufacturing sector and no one is agriculture.
It is reported that the average labor in Singapore works 46 hours a week, the longest
in the world. But according to an Accenture survey, Singapore become the second
country that has lowest job satisfaction among countries surveyed, 76 percent said
they were dissatisfied with their jobs.

Global skills survey by recruitment firm Hays shows that labor market in Singapore
has eased over the past year. For example, the challenges that the manufacturing
sector faces, is the short supply of talent that can facilitate companies’ transformation
to smart manufacturing. A study by the Singapore Management University (SMU)
shows that electronics and electrical engineering manufacturing sector faces a skills
gap. A skill gap is a gap between what employees need and what the employee can
actually do. Skills gap in Singapore moves toward the newer engineering field like
robotics and digital manufacturing has been growing rapidly in Singapore. On the
other side it also comes to finance industry, finance companies and banks are difficult
to hire and attract potential employees. A study from Robert Half showed that four
out of ten companies in Singapore look overseas to hire skilled professionals for their
department and fill 10 percent of their positions with foreign employees. In fact, the
overseas competition will make the skills gap even wider.

The skills gap also resulting by the differences of the workforce’s ages, the young-
adult employee is expertise in numeracy and problem solving skills, meanwhile the
older generation lags far behind. The difference between younger and older
employees in Singapore is one of the largest in the world. People at aged 16 – 34 in
Singapore ranked second behind Finns as the first top list. On the other hand, Almost
80% of Singapore employees above 35 years old were not native speak English; it is a
proof that older employees generation lags considerably behind. Skills gap between
younger and older employees in Singapore also shows a positive impact of the
education development in Singapore. Chief Executive of the Singapore Workforce
Development Agency believes the gap and difference reflects the improvement of
Singapore’s education and training systems over the last 50 years. But it is also
important to keep upgrading older worker skills to survived compete with other
younger generation, as the wage levels in Singapore were strongly depends on the
skill and education levels. For example, an increase points in literacy proficiency
scores is linked to a increase in 12 per cent in hourly wages and 3.2 extra years in
education will result in 30 per cent increase in wages. Government of Singapore from
pursuing their citizens to take a university degree, the wage pay of universities
graduates is $3000 compare to below upper secondary or polytechnic. Compare to the
starting pay of workers of the different levels of education, Singapore become the
highest wages relative to someone with a below upper secondary education. The
problem of wage gap is thus one that strikes all Singaporean workers, they commonly
feel that the education system has such unequal outcomes and their wages are also
unevenly distributed.
Comparison of the starting wage of workers in Singapore:

Comparison of the relative earnings of 25 – 34 years old workers in the world:

References
http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2891&context=soe_research
https://www.ial.edu.sg/content/ialeads/buzz09-MOU-explore-skills-gap.htm
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002178/217874e.pdf
https://thehearttruths.com/2013/12/03/singapore-has-the-biggest-wage-gap-between-
the-educational-levels-among-the-rich-countries/comment-page-1/