Budget 2022: Industry observers welcome more training and upskilling for workers

INDUSTRY observers welcomed the government's provision of additional resources to train and upskill the workforce, noting that the focus on human capital development will help to accelerate companies' long-term growth and internationalisation efforts.

In his Budget 2022 speech on Friday (Feb 18), Finance Minister Lawrence Wong announced that the government would do more to support smaller and micro businesses in training workers. Mid-career training programmes would also be enhanced, in order to support these workers who are "more vulnerable to churn and disruptions in the workplace", Wong said.

Under the SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC) scheme, which helps employees provide industry-relevant training to workers, a waiver of the Skills Development Levy requirement will also be granted for the qualifying period of Jan 1, 2021 to Dec 31, 2021.

Previously, only employers that have had at least 3 local employees, and contributed at least S$750 of Skills Development Levy over a qualifying period, were eligible for the credit. The waiver doubles the number of employers eligible for the scheme, from 40,000 to 80,000.

Kurt Wee, president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME), said the government's increased provision of resources to train and upskill workers sends a "strong signal" to companies that they should develop a growth strategy via a manpower approach.

Companies should therefore tap into these hiring and training schemes to subsidise their manpower costs, especially as they enter a costlier business environment, he said.

Chan Wai Fook, tax services partner at Ernst & Young Solutions LLP, said the upskilling of workers needed to keep up with the pace of companies' growth and transformation.

"You can have all the digital solutions, but if you do not have the people with the right skills to utilise them, you will not see many benefits," he said.

In addition, some SMEs are still concerned about business operations being disrupted should they send existing employees for training or upskilling courses, he added.

"SMEs are already limited in terms of resources. It's a gap they need to address, to ensure that their employees can upskill quickly enough to be able to handle future overseas expansion plans or the adoption of new technologies."

Sharon Teo, SGTech councillor and member of the Talent and Capabilities Committee, said the waiver of the Skills Development Levy requirement under SFEC would open the scheme to a broader base of micro and smaller SMEs.

"This has the potential to incentivise a large swathe of companies to either upskill their capabilities or upskill their employees," she said.

The government also announced that about S$100 million will be set aside to support the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) in scaling up its Company Training Committees (CTC).

The CTC model brings unions and employers together to develop transformation plans, which are then implemented with the support of government agencies.

Meanwhile, company attachments for mature mid-career workers will become a permanent feature of the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme.

Highly-subsidised courses will be provided to jobseekers under a new SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme. Employment facilitation services will also be provided to maximise their jobseeking prospects.

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