Employees here willing to improve to meet uncertainty: survey

Singapore

SINGAPOREAN employees realise that automation might bring about changes in job security - for better or worse - and are willing to undergo training to meet the challenge of automation.

This was one of the findings of the Randstad's Employer Brand Research survey of 5,141 people in Singapore; 5,150 people in Hong Kong; and 4,527 Malaysians. Respondents were aged between 18 to 65, and consisted of both existing employees and job-seekers.

Findings showed that 19 per cent of Singapore employees feared that automation would have negative implications for job security - cutting close to Hong Kong's high of 20 per cent and Malaysia's low of 13 per cent.

But the prospect of employees losing their jobs does not dampen their prospects, Singaporean employees came out strong on a belief in retraining with 72 per cent saying that they would retrain into new roles provided that a pay cut was not in order.

Those unwilling to embrace retraining were a minority, with 8 per cent claiming they would rather move to a new company than retrain - roughly similar to Malaysia's 6 per cent, though comparatively favourable against Hong Kong's 17 per cent.

However, a silver lining could be found in the cloud of automation with 45 per cent of Singaporean employees expressing a positive outlook on automation - believing that it would in fact enhance their job.

In this aspect, Singapore was average compared to Malaysia's 51 per cent and Hong Kong's gloomy 39 per cent. Even so, 30 per cent of surveyed Singaporeans stated that automation would have no effect on their job with a further one in five saying they could not foresee the possibility of new technologies rendering their human roles obsolete.

Both are relatively low as compared to Hong Kong and Malaysia - denoting a greater acceptance that automation would bring about changes within the economy.