SINGAPORE – The SkillsFuture Level-Up scheme aims to make upskilling and job switching a normal part of the employment landscape and not something to be frowned upon as in the past, experts noted at a roundtable discussion on Feb 19.

Panellist Walter Theseira, associate professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, noted that people used to feel they had to stay in the same job for life, but the focus on mid-career upskilling in last week’s Budget shows workers can change their futures.

One of the Budget initiatives in this area includes granting all Singaporeans aged 40 and above a $4,000 top-up of SkillsFuture credits to encourage mid-career workers to refresh their skills and progress in their careers.

They will also get subsidies to pursue another full-time diploma at polytechnics, the Institute of Technical Education and arts institutions from the academic year 2025.

The $4,000 credit will be more targeted and be confined to “selected training programmes with better employability outcomes”, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said in his Feb 16 Budget speech. “We want participants taking up these programmes to be assured of better employability outcomes after they have completed their training.”

Prof Theseira told the ST-UOB roundtable: “I think what the Budget has done is it’s actually signalled much more clearly that this idea of mid-career training, career switching, reskilling is something that should be normalised.”

He added that people could once have been considered failures if they switched jobs, but “we have to get away from that mindset”.

“We have to go to a mindset where everybody has to proactively think about this idea: Maybe at a certain point, I will have done everything I want to do in this particular line of work, maybe I want to change to something else, or maybe I’m seeing that my job and my industry is headed for some difficult times, so I want to do something proactively and get out of it while I still can.”

Normalising this mindset is the spirit of the SkillsFuture initiative, he added, noting: “But to get there, we have to do the matching between the workers, the educators and businesses and I think that is the real challenge.

“It’s not just a money issue, it’s about putting a lot of work into matching everything up nicely.”

Singapore Business Federation chief executive Kok Ping Soon agreed, but noted that some firms operate in such a lean manner that if workers are sent for training, it is hard to find someone to fill in. There is also the concern that the training might not be practical when the worker eventually returns.

Mr Kok said “it’s great that we are giving opportunities for the above-40s to have a second bite of the cherry, but the type of cherry has got to be different,” noting that the type of training cannot be the same as what people half their age are doing.

He added that there has to be a way to close the gap between the employers’ needs and the universities: “How can we even make the workplace an extension of the institutes of higher learning? How can we get the faculty to see themselves as part of the training and development department of a big company?”

He suggested that instead of long-form training, there could be more on-the-job training that translates into something that is recognised, certifiable and portable across the company.

UOB senior economist Alvin Liew noted that future Budgets could look at incentives to encourage employers to accept the changing realities of their staff.

“The company shouldn’t be fearful over whether they would lose the employee as a result of his better skills,” he said. “(Employees) should be looking forward to further careers beyond just sticking to their current job, and if they could, they could make themselves more useful to the company in different roles and maybe with a better enhanced skill set.”

Mr Kok noted that a company that invests in training will also be more attractive to employees, and the Government can accentuate this effect by recognising companies that do so.

“Companies who are not investing (in training) are not going to get workers anyway because they know that, hey, this company doesn’t invest in my training, so why do I join it?” he said.

“People may move, but if everybody does their part, I’m going to get a worker that’s a bit more trained as well.”

The panellists also discussed the temporary financial support scheme for the involuntarily unemployed while they undergo training or look for better-fitting jobs.

Mr Wong, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, said in his speech that those who become involuntarily unemployed naturally feel the pressure to rush into the first available job they find, but the new role might not always be a good fit.

Prof Theseira said the challenge has always been how to balance the need to protect Singaporean workers and their families against economic shocks, while maintaining the dynamism of the economy: “How do you ensure that people are not incentivised, for example, to leave their jobs unnecessarily or to spend too long unemployed and so on?”

He noted that the way to square this problem is to recognise that it’s not a bad thing if people are unemployed if it means departing jobs or industries which are on the decline, so that they can find jobs which better match their skill set.

DPM Wong also announced a training allowance for mid-career workers who are seeking full-time retraining. This monthly amount will be the equivalent of 50 per cent of a person’s average income over the latest available 12-month period, capped at $3,000 a month.

Prof Theseira noted: “That’s very important because for the professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), it actually alleviates a lot of their concerns that they can’t support their families during a period of retraining.”

He added that might prompt people to think about retraining earlier, rather than waiting to be pushed out of their jobs.

Mr Liew said that PMETs with core skills can also be pivoted to other growth industries. He cited people who worked with hard disk drives a decade or two ago who could now transfer to other thriving industries if they just learn the relevant and specific skills.

“It also helps the economy as a whole to try to preserve those core skills, repurpose them into an industry that is growing, rather than to lose it all when the worker jumps in to do a job that he can only find just to make sure that he makes ends meet,” he added.

The roundtable was moderated by ST associate editor and senior columnist Lee Su Shyan.