Speech at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Festival of Ideas

Dr Tan See Leng, Minister of Manpower

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

1. First, thank you to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy for inviting me here today. It feels great to be back in NUS. I feel young again!

2. Congratulations to LKYSPP on your 20th Anniversary. This school is named after Mr Lee Kuan Yew, whose leadership guided Singapore through numerous crises. But beyond that, it was founded to position Singapore as a global point of reference for public policy studies. The mission remains even after two decades. Thank you to the school for your unwavering dedication to building leaders and improving governance standards. You have transformed lives for a more sustainable world.

Current Landscape of Public Policy

3. This year’s festival theme – “Navigating a World in Crisis: Transforming Governance through Ideas”, aptly describes realities today. No country operates in isolation. Singapore as a small and open economy is especially affected by the global uncertainty driven by geopolitical tensions, technological disruptions and climate change.

4. Around the world, geopolitical tensions have led to greater fragmentation around globalisation. Many governments are imposing industrial policies to boost key sectors like semiconductors or green technologies. This has resulted in stiffer competition for investments. Countries are also adopting protectionist measures, as seen in recent tariff actions on Chinese goods or raw materials like steel. In response, businesses are reconfiguring their supply chains – to “friend-shore”, near-shore or on-shore. This has profound implications, particularly for small, trade-dependent economies like Singapore.

5. Technology is another great disruptor. Most of us love it and are greatly dependent on it. Just look at how the recent CrowdStrike incident disrupted so many industries and aspects of our daily life. The rise of Generative AI or GenAI is now changing how we seek and create information. Businesses are racing to integrate AI into their products, from smartphones to everyday appliances. The competition is fierce. With tech giants racing to stay ahead, we can be almost certain the developments will come fast and furious.

6. We cannot afford to be passive spectators in this tech race. With the increased adoption of GenAI, many jobs will be at risk. AI will create some new jobs, like prompt engineers, but it also threatens simpler roles. Students and workers are understandably concerned about their future, and how they can stay relevant. Some of you may worry if your knowledge will still be relevant when you graduate a couple of years later. We will need to do more to help workers and businesses adapt, so that we can harness technology to boost productivity.

7. Climate change is another challenge that we have to grapple with. Climate change is an existential threat to all, especially to a low-lying nation like Singapore. Rising sea levels could one day swallow our tiny red dot if we do nothing. We are doing our best to pursue clean energy, but given our geographical disadvantage for renewable energy, we face significant resource constraints. We must find sustainable ways to secure our energy needs in this climate-challenged world.

8. And all these challenges are against the backdrop of our ageing population. By 2030, around 1 in 4 Singaporeans will be above 60. Singaporeans are also having fewer babies. Although, this being the Year of Dragon, I hope to see a slight baby boom! But, in the long term, our resident workforce growth will moderate. To grow, businesses have to import labour, but we have to do this in a sustainable and complementary manner. We cannot do this indefinitely and indiscriminately because there are social and infrastructural constraints. We must maintain a Singaporean core that is rooted here – not just physically, but also culturally, emotionally, and socially.

9. After hearing me go on about doom and gloom for the last five minutes, perhaps you are ready to throw in the towel, or as the young people would say – “bail”.

10. But I am an eternal optimist. There is a Chinese saying – “穷则变，变则通”. It means when your back is against the wall, you must change, and when you change, you will succeed.

11. The key to responding to all the challenges I spoke about is in the very theme of this festival. We must transform.

How MOM has transformed governance through ideas

12. MOM celebrates our 70^th anniversary next year. We have come a long way since we started as the Ministry of Labour and Welfare in 1955. Singapore and MOM have a long and proud history of policy innovation. Many of the ideas developed before we entered the new millennium or the year 2000 are still relevant and in place today. I credit this to the vision and foresight of our earlier leaders.

13. On 1 July 1955, Singapore introduced the CPF system. Till today, it stands as a cornerstone of Singapore’s social security framework. It is a unique system that combines support from the Government with mandatory contributions from both employers and employees. It is multi-purpose, and takes care of Singaporeans’ housing, healthcare and retirement needs. We are quite proud of our CPF system which has been widely studied and referenced by many around the world. And we will continue to build on it to further strengthen retirement adequacy for Singapore. We have the new $8.2 billion Majulah Package, which will support “young seniors” as well as our Pioneer and Merdeka Generations. We will also enhance Workfare, Silver Support and Matched Retirement Savings Scheme to help seniors meet their basic retirement needs.

14. In 1972, we formed an official tripartite platform – the National Wage Council (NWC). For the last 50 years, the NWC has facilitated many open conversations between the Government, unions and businesses. We do not always agree with one another, but we listen, and forge consensus towards the broader national objectives, which are economic growth and good jobs for Singaporeans. As SM Lee Hsien Loong once shared, people thought he was from Mars when he shared about our tripartite relationship because nowhere else in the world does it like us.

15. And in 1998, when we renamed the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Manpower, we made the first concerted push for continuous training. As a small nation, our people are our only and most valuable resource. We knew that as we went into 21st century, our workforce need ed to be more skilled and dynamic. We cannot compete on numbers like other countries. The only way to continue to grow and expand, and to attract new foreign direct investments is to build a globally competitive and skilled workforce. Just like another Chinese saying – 麻雀虽小，五脏俱全。Although the sparrow is small, it has all the vital organs. Singapore has to offer the right people and the right environment despite our size.

Transforming Governance – Ideas versus Ideals

16. What I have cited are some examples of how MOM has transformed governance through ideas. But why is it that these innovations and policies have not been successfully replicated in other countries? I am sure they too have very good ideas. But to transform governance, it is not enough to have ideas. We must also have ideals and the moral convictions to implement, execute, and carry through these ideas.

17. In Singapore, we believe in incorruptibility, meritocracy, multi-racialism, justice and equality. We believe that we must share the benefit of progress with all to keep our society strong and united. These are timeless values that we should hold fast to, as we write the next chapter of our Singapore Story together.

Shifts in the focus of public policies

18. But we know that times have changed, the employment landscape has changed, and our workers have changed. As what PM Wong said at his National Day Rally recently, we must reset our policies. On the part of the Government, we will reset our policies so that Singapore can better embrace a diversity of skills and talents, and provide stronger support for those affected by the vicissitudes of an uncertain world. Our ambition is to create a society where individuals can flourish and fulfil their potential in their own ways. Singaporeans, too, must join in this effort by undertaking a major reset in attitudes. Be ready to improve our skills, and to keep on doing better.

19. This is what our refreshed social compact is all about. The Government will always help and provide resources for those who step up and want to do more for themselves.

20. As both an economic and social ministry, MOM has a unique and crucial role in this reset. We have heard the feedback, ideas and aspirations from workers and businesses through the Forward Singapore exercise.

21. And we are working to make three key shifts.

22. First, we will shift from just uplifting the vulnerable to also upgrading the broad middle and grooming the apex. I am the last of the baby boomers in Singapore and I have witnessed how our economy has transformed over the years. And through every economic pivot, we brought our people along.

• To illustrate how we have transformed our workforce while maintaining positive employment outcomes, consider this – in my batch at Monk’s Hill Secondary School, out of the whole level, about 650 of us, very few of made it to the local universities. Today, more than 40% of each cohort will get a degree – and most of them can find work within six months of graduating. And starting pay for graduates have consistently trended up even as the cohort sizes increase significantly.
• Over the last decade, resident income has also increased by 21.6% in real terms. But in the face of the rapid technological disruptions and external challenges, we understand that many Singaporeans have anxieties and apprehensions about work. We will continue to uplift our lower-wage workers through schemes like Workfare and Progressive Wage Model. o We also want to support the broad middle of Singaporean workers to develop healthy and resilient careers. We will empower Singaporeans to proactively develop in-demand skillsets and experiences, and take charge of their careers. To support them, we will provide jobs and skills insights – be it through the AI-powered CareersFinder tool or personalised career coaching services offered by WSG. We will also launch a new Overseas Markets Immersion Programme or OMIP to help Singaporeans gain overseas experience, which are valuable for career progression. Employers that support the career development of their workers will also attract and retain talent better and be able to tap on adjacent talent pools to grow. We will help businesses to adopt a skills-first approach to hiring, and support them to invest in skills development for their people.

23. Our second shift. We will help businesses build workplaces which are both progressive and productive. We want Singaporeans to achieve their career aspirations, even as our local population ages and our workforce profile changes. This means, of course, raising the productivity of locals through upskilling and reskilling so that they can continue to enjoy good jobs with wage growth. But reskilling can be costly for businesses. We will support employers more by enhancing Workforce Singapore’s Career Conversion Programme. We will increase the cap on salary support and monthly training allowance for attachments. And we have set aside $100 million to support NTUC in its efforts to scale up enterprise and workforce transformation through Company Training Committees.

• We are also helping more locals to stay in the workforce through progressive workplace practices. We have been raising the Retirement and Re-employment age so that seniors can continue to work if they are able and want to do so. We launched the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests. This is not a demand for flexible work, but to create a structured process for businesses and workers to achieve win-win outcomes that provide more flexibility without compromising productivity. Earlier this month, you may have caught the debate in Parliament on the Platform Workers Bill. The Bill, which was passed, will improve their housing and retirement adequacy, provide them with work injury compensation, and representation through union-like associations. Singapore is one of the first countries to provide statutory protections for platform workers as a distinct group from employees. This is how we recognise the inherent value and dignity of every worker, regardless of the work they do.

24. The third and final shift for MOM is to go beyond our role as an enforcer to enable growth for businesses and workers. To grow this economic pie, we will need two crucial ingredients.

• First, we must continue to be a global hub for talent – both by developing our own talent and attracting talent from around the world. Singaporeans are at the core of what we do. Even as we continue to invest heavily in Singaporeans, we update our foreign workforce policies to attract global talent to Singapore. Our foreign workforce policies are designed to help us attract and anchor the right profile of foreign workers, who can grow new pillars of our economy, drive business transformation, and ultimately create good jobs for Singaporeans. That is why we maintain an open stance towards top talent and have a suite of work passes targeted at this profile of foreign workers. Early last year, in January 2023, we rolled out a new pass, the Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass (ONE Pass), aimed at top talent across all industries who earn a fixed month salary of at least $30,000. At the same time, we reassure Singaporeans that they will benefit from this growth. In September 2023, we rolled-out COMPASS, a new points-based holistic assessment framework for EP candidates that also considers firm-level attributes like diversity and support for local employment. Across the local and foreign workforce, our strategy is to maximise the potential of every individual and allocate manpower resources to the most productive firms.
• The other key ingredient is tripartism. Tripartism is a unique competitive advantage for Singapore. It provides the industrial climate that is stable and conducive to businesses daring to commit to long term investment. It assures workers that their interests would be safeguarded and that businesses would concurrently take care of them and share their prosperity as these businesses prosper. Over the years, the government, unions and employers consistently worked together through the good and bad times towards a common goal of ensuring Singapore’s survival. Through the trials and challenges, we forged trust by supporting one another. Going forward, the tougher economic conditions and greater political contestation will test tripartite relationships so we must work even harder to safeguard this precious collaborative approach.

Conclusion

25. I would like to end my speech with quote from Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He said, “The future is full of promise as it is fraught with uncertainty”.

26. Singapore’s strength has always been in our ability to adapt and transform. From the creation of the CPF system to our unique tripartite partnership, we have shown that innovative policies, guided by strong values like meritocracy and fairness will lead to success. Through the times, MOM will continue to evolve, to support workers and businesses, driving growth and fostering inclusive workplaces.

27. I am confident that as long as we hold true to our ideals, and be bold enough to try out new ideas, we can thrive in this ever-changing world.

28. Thank you, and I look forward to continue this conversation during our dialogue later.