The number of job vacancies reached an all-time high last year, with 35 per cent of vacancies remaining unfilled for at least six months, and a majority of the unfilled roles being professional, managerial, executive, and technical (PMET) ones.

A tight labour market was not the only reason for why these roles went unfilled, said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), nor was it a lack of academic qualifications among Singaporeans.

Rather, employers were unable to find candidates with the relevant skills or work experience, the ministry said.

These findings were released on Friday (April 1) as part of MOM’s annual job vacancy report, which detailed the type and nature of positions that employers are looking to fill, the type of jobs in demand and difficulties in filling these jobs.

A total of 14,340 establishments employing some 1.8 million employees were polled between Nov 2021 and January this year, around the time Singapore was undergoing the Omicron wave of the Covid-19 variant.

HARD TO FILL POSITIONS

The report found that 35 per cent of job vacancies were unfilled for six months or more in 2021, an increase from the previous year (27 per cent).

For PMETs, the top five positions unfilled for at least six months were:

Software, web and multimedia developer

Audit associate professional

Registered nurse and other nursing professional

Systems analyst

Commercial and marketing sales executive

Employers commonly cited a shortage of candidates with the necessary skills (43 per cent) and work experience (33.8 per cent), especially in positions that required specialised technical knowledge such as software developers or systems analysts, as top reasons for why these PMET positions were unfilled.

Aside from unattractive pay (29.8 per cent), other reasons included increased competition (22.4 per cent) from other employers for positions such as audit associate professionals.

For non-PMETs, the top five positions unfilled for at least six months were:

Construction labourer

Cleaner

Shop sales assistant

Waiter

Heavy truck and lorry driver

Workers were commonly deterred by the physically strenuous job (52.4 per cent), unattractive pay (42.6 per cent) and non-conducive working environment (36.8 per cent).

JOBS IN DEMAND

The report found that among the job openings in 2021, 44 per cent of positions were newly created as a result of business expansion, such as the opening of new outlets, or new roles that the firms are hiring for due to restructuring or development in new business areas.

A majority of the job vacancies (53 per cent), said MOM, were for PMETs, but the proportion of non-PMET vacancies has also been rising since 2020.

This is particularly so for construction labourers and electrical and electronic equipment assemblers, due to border closures that restricted the inflow of foreign workers.

The ministry also found that the pandemic has accelerated the trend towards digitalisation, leading to greater demand for technological skills.

Among the top PMET jobs in demand were:

Commercial and marketing sales executive

Software, web and multimedia developer

Operations officer (except transport operations)

Systems analyst

Meanwhile, the top non-PMET jobs in demand include:

Construction labourer

Shop sales assistant

Cleaner

Receptionist, customer service and information clerk

SKILLS AND ATTITUDE KEY CONSIDERATIONS

The report also found that slightly over seven in 10 of the job vacancies last year remained unfilled because employers were not assessing candidates primarily based on their academic qualifications.

MOM said this trend has “been on the rise, with a more pronounced increase observed for PMETs”.

Instead of academic qualifications, a candidate’s skill set and work attitude were the key considerations for employers, MOM found.

“Hence, having relatively higher qualifications does not mean a candidate is automatically considered ahead of his or her counterpart with lower qualifications,” said MOM.

DECLINE IN REMOTE WORKING

Despite greater demand for technological skills, the proportion of vacancies that involved work that could be done remotely dipped slightly from 35 per cent in 2020 to 31 per cent.

This reflected the higher proportion of vacancies from industries and occupations where remote work was not prevalent, such as production engineers in manufacturing or civil engineers in construction.

At the same time with the resumption of workplace activities, MOM said fewer employers offered remote work options for occupations which usually require face-to-face interactions or on-site presence such as operations officers in food & beverage services, as well as commercial and marketing sales executives.

‘CLEAR INDICATION ECONOMY RECOVERING’

Commenting on the record high job vacancies last year, Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said that when considered together with both the growth in employment and falling unemployment, it becomes a “clear indication that the economy is recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

With the economy picking up, Dr Tan said he hopes that employers can put in more resources in training available manpower to meet longer term needs.

“I would exhort all employers…to adopt a plug, train and play mindset when hiring through our SGUnited Midcareer Pathway programme, as well as the Career Conversion Programme,” he said.

Touching on the impacts of the easing of border restrictions, which were announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last Thursday, Dr Tan said the labour shortages in non-PMET roles "will largely abate" as Singapore opens up further. 

However, with the relaxation of social gathering measures, Dr Tan said “consumer-facing industries may face persistent strain as hiring demand picks up alongside resumption of business activities”.

To that end, Dr Tan urged businesses to find ways to transform their businesses and raise productivity.

For instance, he said the Service Industry Transformation Programme — which supports the lifestyle sector by providing guidance on service delivery and job redesign — has been simplified, and will now take half the time to complete. Instead of taking 30 weeks to finish, the project duration has been shortened to 15 weeks.

Dr Tan also said that there are ways to expand the resident workforce despite the tighter labour market.

One way is for employers to tap some 260,000 women “who are not back in the workforce, but who are capable of doing so”. The other is through the hiring of older workers, of which there are another 120,000.

On the Government’s part, he said it has been supporting local hiring through schemes like the Jobs Growth Incentive, which has matched close to 509,000 job applicants with 67,000 firms between September 2020 and August 2021.

The scheme, which helps firms increase the headcount of local workers through the provision of Government subsidies for their wages, will be available until September this year.

With the easing of Covid restrictions, there will also be a decrease in demand for short-term Covid-19 roles such as safe distancing ambassadors (SDAs), Dr Tan noted.

Many, he said, will return to sectors that they had originally come from, such as aviation or the service industry.

He added that the authorities will also be trying to absorb SDAs into the healthcare sector as well, if they have been deployed to areas related to it.

As for others, he said many agencies that employed the SDAs are working with Workforce Singapore and the Employment and Employability Institute to create a “roadmap” to have these individuals employed elsewhere.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by LOW YOUJIN

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