Precision engineering growth faces bottleneck of talent shortage

SINGAPORE’S precision engineering (PE) industry has seen strong growth, but a lack of skilled workers may throw a spanner in the works. While labour shortages are occurring across the manufacturing sector, precision engineering is particularly reliant on specialised workers who are harder to acquire, with even overseas sources running dry, industry players told The Business Times.

After a 2.5 per cent contraction in 2019, the precision engineering industry saw double-digit annual growth in 2020 and 2021. In the first 7 months of 2022, PE output grew 6.5 per cent from the year-ago period, according to figures from the Singapore Economic Development Board.

Yet a major limiting factor is a lack of manpower. Industry body Singapore Precision Engineering and Technology Association (SPETA) and government body Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) recently held a closed-door session to talk about “anything under the sky”, as SPETA generation II chairman Tan Ru-Ding put it. (*see Amendment note)*But there was only one topic on attendees’ minds, he added: “Three hours long, (and) everybody was talking about nothing other than manpower issues.”