Singapore expects even split of fresh graduates, mid-career switchers to make up 10,000 new AI workers
Half are expected to be IT students with pre-employment AI training, and the rest mid-career individuals taking up CET programmes
ABOUT half of Singapore’s intended pipeline of 10,000 new artificial intelligence (AI) workers are expected to come through reskilling programmes, with the other half being fresh graduates, said Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How on Wednesday (Nov 13).
He was responding to questions in Parliament on how the government intends to treble the AI workforce to 15,000 over the next three to five years, a goal that was announced in December last year.
One approach is “to boost the AI readiness of existing information and digital technology graduates” through pre-employment training, with a pipeline of about 5,000, he told the House. The other 5,000 are expected to be workers who have undergone Continuing Education and Training programmes to gain AI skills, or take up AI-related roles in a mid-career transition from other information technology (IT) or digital fields.
In a supplementary question, Ang Wei Neng, Member of Parliament for West Coast GRC, noted that a career conversion programme has so far supported only 190 workers in transitioning to AI-related roles. This is “quite a far cry” from the goal of 5,000. This figure was in a November report by the Estimates Committee, a parliamentary group that examines government spending.
Tan replied that the report referred to individuals who had made such a transition through a career conversion scheme under the Jobs Transformation Maps (JTM) programme.
The JTM for information and communications, published in October 2022, identified AI as a key emerging trend that would transform technology-related roles. The Infocomm Media Development Authority then worked with five partners on reskilling and upskilling for AI and analytics, with an emphasis on generative AI, software engineering, as well as cloud and mobility. “We are making good progress with our JTM partners since it was launched in 2023, and so the 190 figure was really in the context of the JTM programme,” said Tan.
He added that, more broadly, the government has various initiatives, including other career conversion programmes and the TechSkills Accelerator. Over the past three years, they have respectively helped 1,000 and 8,000 mid-career workers to transition into technology roles involving software, cloud and AI, he noted.
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