S1E30: Why Singaporeans need good 'career health' and agility going forward

Aug 27, 2023

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Progression, resilience, and inclusion are key areas of concern at public Forward SG sessions on jobs and upskilling.

Synopsis: Every second and fourth Monday of the month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at social issues of the day with guests.

The Forward Singapore exercise began in June 2022, and since then, over 14,000 Singaporeans from all walks of life have participated in about 140 engagement sessions on a wide range of topics. This is the first of four podcast discussions till mid-October, and part of the ongoing conversation to refresh our social compact for the next lap of Singapore's journey.

ST's podcast editor Ernest Luis hosts three guests in this episode:

Mr Kenny Tan, Deputy Secretary for Workforce at the Ministry of Manpower
Mr Ivan Lua was once an airforce officer and has made a successful career transition at the age of 36, to his current role as Information and Cyber Security Risk Specialist at Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore after taking part in the Technology in Finance Immersion Programme (TFIP) offered by Workforce Singapore and the Institute of Banking and Finance
Mr Keith Ng, the CEO of Performance Rotors, a company that was started in 2016 to build drones and develop robotics solutions for data acquisition in GPS denied and confined space environments.

This podcast is brought to you by the Ministry of Communications and Information, in support of Forward Singapore: https://str.sg/wFbY

Highlights (click/tap above):

4:23 Mr Lua on how he decided and prepared to change careers, from the airforce to the banking industry now

5:34 Single career path in life no longer the norm: Deputy Secretary Kenny Tan on why even new jobs created by new technologies today might be replaced - "career agility" the key

8:33 Mr Lua on his reservations, confidence, and his career transition experience

14:50 Why Singaporeans should start taking charge of their "career health", as DS Tan explains the importance of Singaporean evolving their own mindsets

21:54 Mr Ng on his personal experience of hiring a mature worker in 2021 through Workforce Singapore's Career Conversion Programme for Internationalisation Professionals

28:00 Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ over 70 per cent of Singapore's workforce; why SMEs should step forward first too, learn to transform jobs and look at national subsidies for training programmes