THE National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) on Tuesday (Sep 26) called for companies to ensure equal and protected training opportunities and age-universal job redesign.

While older workers appreciate efforts to raise retirement and re-employment ages, they do not feel they are given equal opportunities that could guarantee their ability to do their jobs, NTUC deputy secretary-general Heng Chee How told media during a visit to Polar Puffs and Cakes’ production facility in Woodlands.

A survey conducted by NTUC in early 2022 indicated that some 92 per cent of older workers aged 55 and above are interested in pursuing training. However, 63 per cent of all respondents felt that older workers have fewer opportunities to do so compared with younger workers.

A later survey found that training participation rates decline with age: 58 per cent of those aged 55 and above attended training in the last 12 months; compared with 71 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 44, and 66 per cent of those 45 to 54.

A job-skill mismatch is a lose-lose situation, said Heng. “If (companies) have an increasing number of older workers who are not quite able to keep up with the technology, to keep up with the new processes and requirements, their own company’s competitiveness suffers.”

NTUC urged employers to implement the union’s Company Training Committees (CTCs) and give “due attention and impetus” to equal training opportunities for older workers, highlighting the need for protected training time.

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CTCs work together with employees and companies to determine their training requirements and schedules, and provide the structure and machinery helping companies to implement and convince workers to take up purposeful training, said Heng.

Companies should also continue to redesign jobs to be age-universal, NTUC said. It also urged employers to tap on support from its Training & Placement Ecosystem as well as government programmes for consultancy and implementation subsidies.

The union also identified strengthening retirement adequacy, especially for lower-income older workers, as another area of focus. This is best done through improving their earnings, which is in turn best done when workers are enabled in working more years if they want, said Heng.

It also flagged the need to develop additional work areas such as micro-jobs at the local or community level.

“Both companies and older workers must understand where their core interests lie and coincide, put in the effort, and adjust,” said Heng: “We either win this together, or no one wins.”