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SINGAPORE – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced further measures on Thursday (November 26) to help develop and retain a core Singaporean workforce for the financial services sector.
The measures were announced in a webinar jointly organized by MAS and the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF), called “Growing Timber.”
Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS and president of the IBF, said the financial sector plans to offer 1,800 newly created jobs and 2,000 internships in the 12 months to June 2021, according to the central bank’s job outlook pilot survey.
While jobs are spread across different functions, the biggest hiring demand is in technology, with 880 jobs, Menon said, speaking at the event.
MAS will launch a new Work and Study Support Program (WSSP) that will fund 80 percent of the internship stipend, capped at $ 1,000 per month, for Singaporean undergraduates doing their internships at financial institutions .
This is to develop work-ready graduates and build a Singapore talent pipeline for the sector.
The new scheme is part of the SkillsFuture Study and Work Program (WSDeg), which enables students to gain meaningful work experience and acquire job-relevant skills.
The financial services sector has been a major participant in the WSDeg program since its introduction in 2017, and the WSSP will help scale the program into strategic growth areas, MAS said.
MAS will also extend the Company-sponsored Apprenticeship Training Grant Grant for six months from December 31 to June 30 of next year. The IBF will also extend its 5% additional credit in the course fee to cover the period. The plan aims to boost job retention by enhancing workers’ skills amid changing tasks and roles.
The Training Grant Grant will keep the skills training momentum in demand, such as technology, and in new growth areas, such as green finance, MAS said.
Since the Training Grant Grant and related measures were introduced on April 8 of this year to help financial institutions and fintech companies retain staff and develop longer-term capabilities, there has been a year-on-year increase of 65 % in participation in training, he added.
MAS urged employers to continue to take advantage of improved training support measures to equip locals with skills to improve their employability in the sector.
Menon said job creation has become the central economic challenge amid the coronavirus pandemic, and jobs have also moved front and center on MAS’s financial development agenda.
In Singapore, the government has always been aware that creating good jobs is of the utmost importance. So in every recession, government support has focused on keeping jobs, keeping Singaporeans employed, he said.
Singapore’s financial sector, which accounted for 13.3 percent of the Republic’s gross domestic product in 2019, employed more than 170,000 workers last year. The sector created 22,000 net jobs between 2015 and 2019. About 70 percent of those jobs were for Singapore citizens.
In the first half of 2020, amid the pandemic, the financial sector managed to create 1,900 net jobs, all of which went to the local population.
Menon said the MAS survey showed that for more than 60 percent of the 1,800 jobs, financial institutions are looking for experienced or specialist hires.
He said a concerted effort is needed to give mid-career job seekers the opportunity to train in these new jobs.
“Employers must be willing to take advantage of a calculated opportunity to hire and train job seekers in the middle of their career who have good experience but do not have all the necessary skills but can be trained,” he said.
“Similarly, job seekers must be willing to step out of their comfort zone and try new roles and acquire new skills,” he added.
Regarding the new Work-Study Support Program, Mr. Menon said MAS has been working with the private banking industry for an indicative commitment of around 200 trainees over the next three years, and plans to expand its efforts to other growth areas such as asset management.
He urged more financial institutions to join these internship programs to help build a strong Singapore talent pipeline for the financial sector.
The Growing Timber webinar is the first in a planned series of such events to provide a forum for key industry workforce issues, MAS said.
Menon said the series is part of MAS’s attempt to broaden and deepen its partnership with the financial industry and its professionals to strengthen Singapore’s core of financial services.
“Together, we can transform Singapore’s workforce into the best in the world,” he said.
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