| Finally, capabilities building.
We will use the crisis period to upgrade both our physical
infrastructure and human capital, so that we can compete
in the global economic arena on the basis of world-class
capabilities, while managing our cost competitiveness.
Education and economic infrastructure
will continue to remain a priority in Government's development
expenditure programme this year. To build economic infrastructure,
$1.9 billion worth of new development projects were
approved in the off-Budget measures in June 1998. These
included major projects such as the incorporation of
IT into primary and secondary schools, upgrading of
university facilities and further investment in Singapore
ONE.
In FY99, Government will continue to
invest in economic capabilities for the long term. We
will increase development spending by a substantial
$1.2 billion to $13.9 billion. This is the highest development
budget to date. We will continue to invest more in education,
up from $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion, to provide better
schools, campus infrastructure and facilities, teaching
equipment and to roll out the IT Master Plan. These
education projects will prepare our next generation
for the challenge of a knowledge-based economy.
We will also spend more to increase
our industrial land stock with on-going reclamation
at Jurong Island, Tuas View and Changi East. Likewise,
we will increase spending on rail infrastructure, including
the North-East MRT line and the Changi MRT extension.
Another key challenge is upgrading
our manpower to keep workers employable. With the rapid
pace of economic restructuring, the current unemployment
can turn into structural unemployment over time, as
unemployed persons may be mismatched with new job vacancies
because they do not possess the right skills.
This is a pressing issue. A disproportionate
share of retrenched local workers in 1998 were older
than 40 years of age and with less than secondary education.
The duration of unemployment has also increased to 8.9
weeks in mid-1998, compared with 7.5 weeks a year earlier.
As long-term unemployed workers lose their job skills
and become stigmatised by employers, this could lead
to increasing and persistent unemployment rates, a phenomenon
seen in European unemployment for the last 15 years.
We must press on with Continuous Education
& Training (CET) and skills upgrading to tackle
this problem of structural unemployment. While the threat
is more immediate for older and lower-skilled workers,
it is no less urgent for our executives and professionals.
They too must hone their skills and expertise in order
to develop new capabilities and anticipate the rapidly
changing demands in the workplace. As such, our CET
plans encompass the entire spectrum of the workforce
- from young to old, and from semi-skilled workers to
managers and professionals.
Specific Government initiatives launched
under the CET umbrella include the following: an initial
budget of $120 million pledged for the expansion of
the Skills Redevelopment Programme which pays special
attention to unskilled and semi-skilled mid-career workers;
and $800 million for the Initiatives in New Technology
(INTECH) grant scheme targeted at manpower development
in leading edge technologies, of which $50 million has
been earmarked for EDB's new Training and Attachment
Programme (TAP) which helps fund the cost of training
new engineering graduates recruited by MNCs at their
overseas plants.
In addition, the Ministry of Manpower
(MOM) is working out a broad funding mechanism to support
the development of national manpower capabilities as
part of the Manpower 21 (M21) exercise. The M21 Report
will be announced in due course. Programmes in the pipeline
include setting up a Skills Certification System to
establish a skills progression path and skills acquisition
benchmark for the workforce; the Strategic Manpower
Conversion Programme to incentivise the deployment of
under-utilised professional manpower into strategic
sectors with skills shortages; and supporting learning
providers to create and augment the infrastructure and
curriculum for lifelong learning.
Our aim is to build up a national framework
for continuous enhancement of knowledge and skills.
The goal is to educate, train and retrain workers so
that they can continue to take on new jobs or enlarged
duties. This is the essence of lifelong employability.
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