New initiatives to help match skills with jobs in ICT sector
TODAY file photo
SINGAPORE — To prepare Singaporeans for a career in the burgeoning infocommunications technology (ICT) sector, the Government, labour movement and professional bodies on Friday (Oct 21) unveiled additional support for job-seekers to match skills with jobs and build capabilities in the sector.
The aim is to reach at least 1,200 professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) through the new initiatives, announced by Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say during a career services event for ICT professionals at the Lifelong Learning Institute. As of last year, there were about 20,000 ICT job vacancies, with 170,000-odd ICT professionals employed here.
Among the initiatives is a platform that provides such professionals with career support and matches them to jobs. The TechSkills Accelerator Integrated Career Services initiative sees the Government, industry and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) coordinate efforts to form a support network that includes career centres at the NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) and the sharing of resources to hold job fairs.
Individuals seeking these services may register at physical touchpoints at e2i career centres, the NTUC’s U PME Centre or Workforce Singapore.
For instance, the U PME Centre will help ICT professionals pick up skills through a range of avenues, such as training programmes and placements. The NTUC will also join hands with various agencies to scale up professional conversion programmes to help workers given the pink slip acquire new skills and knowledge, and to land jobs again quickly.
Meanwhile, individuals and job-seekers with an interest in joining or advancing in the ICT sector will be mentored by veterans and practitioners, under a new programme to tap the rich expertise, experience and knowledge of industry veterans and practitioners in providing career advice.
The ICT sector is the first to benefit from the SkillsFuture Career Advisers Programme, which falls under the Government’s Adapt and Grow employment-support initiative. The programme will be rolled out progressively to other sectors.
Under the programme for the ICT sector, a Singapore Computer Society (SCS) initiative, dubbed the SCS Career Compass, will see a network of more than 100 ICT veterans and experts volunteer as mentors.
In his speech at the career services event, Mr Lim called the new initiatives the most comprehensive and coordinated career-support systems launched to date. They were meant to overcome what he termed the twin challenges of “missed match” and mismatch.
On a “missed match”, professionals find it harder to keep track of where and how to pursue appropriate skills as the pace of change in the sector intensifies. “As a result, the jobs are there, the job-seekers are there,” he said, “but the two may keep missing each other like two ships passing by ... in the dark.”
There is also a need, he added, to address the mismatch between the skills, expertise and experience of job-seekers and the jobs they want. This applies not only to newcomers but those with years of experience in the sector.
IT professional Leonard Lau, 46, who has been looking for employment since losing his job as a project manager in a multinational in March, lauded the initiative to link job-seekers with career advisers.
“It’s a good opportunity, through this platform, where we also learn how we can value-add and improve, as a job-seeker, our chances of employability as well as … skills,” he said.
