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Tag: manpower

  • Technicians, Engineers, Among Hard-To-Fill Job Positions

    Technicians, Engineers, Among Hard-To-Fill Job Positions

    More employers are having problems filling job vacancies, a worldwide survey has found, reflecting the mismatch in jobs and skills that government leaders recently highlighted while addressing the rising number of layoffs.

    The Talent Shortage Survey, released on Tuesday (Oct 18) by workforce solutions provider ManpowerGroup, showed that sales representatives, engineers, technicians, accounting and finance professionals, as well as drivers are the top five jobs in Singapore that are not being taken up.

    More than 42,000 employers in 42 countries were surveyed and 40 per cent of them have trouble filling jobs — the highest level in nine years.

    Slightly more than half of the employers here (51 per cent) reported facing difficulty in filling jobs, a jump of 11 per cent from last year, the survey showed.

    (Click to enlarge)

    These employers said that the top reason for that is the job-seeker’s lack of experience (22 per cent), or the candidate was looking for more pay than offered (21 per cent), or there was a lack of or no applicants (17 per cent).

    To address this shortage, 52 per cent of the employers here are offering training and development to existing workers, ManpowerGroup said in a press release, while 47 per cent are paying higher salary packages to recruits.

    The Government’s latest labour market report showed that there were more job-seekers than the number of job vacancies available, and in the first half of the year, professionals, managers, executives and technicians made up about 56 per cent of layoffs.

    In Parliament last week, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say addressed this problem in the job market, saying there is a need to minimise the mismatch in jobs and skills, given that many job-seekers have higher expectations and aspirations, and do not want jobs that have been newly vacated by others. Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam also said last month that Singapore faces “a big task” in matching people to jobs and in reducing the mismatches in workers’ skills and what jobs require.

    Ms Linda Teo, country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore, said: “Upskilling our Singapore workforce is critical to ensure organisations have the skills they need to accelerate performance and everyone has access to the opportunities on offer.

    “The best organisations know this, which is why we’ve seen a marked rise in the number of businesses focusing on training and development to fill talent gaps. We expect to see this number grow.”

    In the Asia-Pacific region, almost half of the employers (46 per cent) report hiring difficulties, with Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong reporting the most challenges.

    The survey found that, overall, employers worldwide are looking inside their organisations for solutions to tackle this rapid change in skills requirements, with more than half choosing to develop and train their own people. This is a big increase from last year’s survey, when just 20 per cent of employers prioritised training and development to fill roles or find new skills.

    For the first time globally, the IT sector found itself among the top five spots for industries with hard-to-fill roles, and IT businesses are reporting the most marked talent shortage in a number of years.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Singapore Navy Plans To Boost Manpower, Reaching Out To Mid-Careerists And Females

    Singapore Navy Plans To Boost Manpower, Reaching Out To Mid-Careerists And Females

    The Singapore Navy is not resting on its laurels, even as it celebrates 48 years of keeping Singapore’s waters secure.

    Facing tightening manpower demographics in an increasingly complex maritime climate, it is adopting several changes to strengthen its numbers.

    The Military Domain Experts Scheme started five years ago as a means of retaining servicemen with deep expertise. It is also a possible mid-career entry point, for those mulling a career in uniform. Currently, mid-careerists make up about 10 per cent of those on the scheme.

    Speaking to reporters on Friday (May 8), Navy Chief Rear-Admiral Lai Chung Han said a campaign to target mid-careerists to join the scheme might be in the works.

    He added that the Navy might even consider creating new vocations to better tap the skills of these mid-careerists, depending on the Navy’s needs.

    But not just anyone should apply. “They must bring value, it must make sense, and it must be because there’s an operational need for these vocations – those in engineering, those in the merchant navy, those who work in industry, precision manufacturing, those with backgrounds in safety, lawyers even – because going forward I think a good understanding of law, international law, how that applies in periods of tension and so and so forth,” RADM Lai said.

    Also on the Navy’s radar is the recruitment of more women into the force.

    Just seven per cent of its manpower are female – a figure the Navy plans to double in the next 10 to 15 years, matching other developed navies worldwide. But the Navy Chief said this requires not only family-friendly policies, but mindset changes too.

    He said: “If you look at our numbers, going forward if we don’t recruit more women, we can’t man all our positions. So to the men in the Navy, or in the armed forces who refuse this, the choice is simple – you either have that post not filled, or you have a woman who comes in, serves effectively for 20 to 25 years, but is away for maternity every now and then only.

    “So that’s a choice for us, and it’s a very stark reality. You need to recognise that women also bring great value, especially in an advanced armed forces where technology is key – where there’s less heavy lifting, physical strength, but (more of) mental strength, leadership, character and values.”

    And as the Navy equips itself with the latest technologies, it is also looking at how this can enable NS manpower to be better utilised.

    RADM Lai said: “We don’t see larger ships, newer ships crewed by NSmen because you really need more mature platforms. (We see) NSmen augmenting the crews of these ships, whether the Landing Ship Tanks or the frigates. And as we shift very decisively to using unmanned systems, the units that are operating these systems can be NS units.”

    He said he hopes as much as a quarter of the fleet could use unmanned systems, fully operated by NS units from the word “go”.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com