NTUC sets up youth taskforce, to draw up proposals for workers under 25

THE labour movement is hoping to engage 10,000 young workers aged below 25 through a new taskforce, as it takes a targeted approach towards supporting workers from different segments, labour chief Ng Chee Meng said.

In a May Day message unveiled on Saturday (Apr 30), he said the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) needs to look at the needs of the workforce of Singapore's future, beyond representing workers at all stages of their careers.

"We will form a taskforce that focuses on young individuals who are entering the working world, to engage and gain a deeper insight into their work-life needs," said the NTUC secretary-general. "We will continue to enable our youth to realise their aspirations and address their needs."

The taskforce will be headed by NTUC assistant secretary-general Desmond Choo, who will also be supporting Young NTUC head Wendy Tan. It will build on a study that NTUC conducted in partnership with the Singapore University of Technology and Design, which surveyed 1,039 youth on their concerns at the workplace.

Career-related matters, finances and mental well-being emerged as their top 3 challenges; more than half said they faced challenges in career opportunities and prospects.

The study found that young people do not realise they may need to learn when and how to ask for help on work-related matters, often preferring to resolve such problems by themselves or by asking for help from friends and colleagues, instead of approaching authority figures and organisations.

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"We think that there is a space where NTUC can come in to enable our youth better than what is available currently," Ng told reporters at a briefing.

He said the taskforce hopes to engage 10,000 youth to gain an understanding of their needs, and their challenges and aspirations.

Noting that young workers are typically defined as those being age 35 and below, Ng said they tend to have different life concerns before and after they get married. In 2020, the median age at first marriage for Singaporean men and women was 30.4 and 28.8 respectively, said the Singapore Department of Statistics.

"I remember when I got married, my whole life outlook changed - I had to buy my own groceries, toilet paper, toothpaste - everything," he said. "But the needs of a 25-year-old person, male or female, are completely (different) - maturity, life cycle, coming out of school, their anxieties, going into a brand new world - all very, very different."

Ng said that the work of the youth taskforce would help the labour movement reach out to workers of various ages and segments, adding that the taskforce is aiming to present "concrete proposals" within the next 12-18 months

"When we are able to do this, it will really round up our intentional approach to forge a new workers' compact across all the different work segments," he said.

Last October, a similar taskforce focusing on PMEs submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Manpower, in a push to enhance workplace fairness and strengthen the "Singaporean core". One of its suggestions - to implement a points-based system for Employment Pass applicants - was accepted by the government and formally introduced in March.

"More and more, we are no longer looking at workers in general, but workers in specific," Ng said.

"The needs of a senior worker wanting a longer runway to either keep an active life or prepare for retirement are quite different from the needs of a PME (professional, manager, executive) who is below 40," he said.

Monthly income levels within the PME segment, he noted, range from S$2,500 to S$15,000 and beyond.

"For PMEs that earn S$6,000 and below, especially when they are older and faced with more challenges, I think these are the folks that actually we can extend real practical assistance to."