From education to business, the coronavirus pandemic has had a fundamental impact
on the workforce — in some cases, accelerating the digital revolution; and, in others,
disrupting industries and making jobs redundant.
Existing industries were exponentially growing.
That has many wondering about the jobs of the future
and what might be the skills needed to secure them.
What is the next set of skills that I can acquire for myself to put myself out there
in the job marketplace and be in demand?
To understand more, I’m in Singapore speaking to job experts and mid-career professionals
to find out how we might prepare for a rapidly changing landscape.
I think the pandemic has definitely accelerated people’s need to learn new skills,
mastering new skills, as well as the move towards looking for new roles.
On a typical day, Kevin Ng works with bankers at Credit Agricole
to develop risk analysis tools using Java software.
We develop tools to help these bankers conduct their analysis,
keep track of all the loans and the risk.
No one would have guessed that barely a year back, the 29-year-old was a flight attendant.
After shuttling between cities for six years, Kevin was restless.
In 2019, he decided to trade his flight attendant uniform for the books,
picking up a new skill entirely from scratch.
My goals were set out quite clearly: I wanted to do work that’s more cumulative.
I tended towards technology.
It’s just this thing that tech draws people in.
Kevin is a graduate of a 12-week Tech Immersion and Placement Programme, a tie-up between
the Singapore government and coding school General Assembly,
which helps workers with no experience in tech transit into such careers.
Motivated to move to a career with solid long-term prospects, Kevin is now a software engineer
after securing the job virtually during Singapore’s lockdown period.
He is one of many mid-career workers and fresh graduates
picking up new skills in a tight labor market.
In the first half of 2020, more than 5,000 Singapore citizens were retrenched,
while unemployment in the city-state hit its highest level in more than a decade,
rising from 2.4% in the first quarter to 2.9%.
The downturn has affected the labor market, prompting a renewed emphasis
on learning new skills for employees and job seekers alike.
In a recent study, 86% of employees in Singapore said they are motivated
to upskill or reskill in the next 12 months.
There is a huge movement in terms of forcing professionals to think very differently about,
what else do I need to master?
What other skills do I need to have?
Between July 2019 and June 2020, professional networking site LinkedIn saw a 300% increase
in time spent on its learning platform in Singapore, compared to the preceding period.
The most popular courses in Singapore this year include a mixture of technical skills,
such as Excel and programming language Python, as well as soft skills
like strategic thinking and building resilience.
LinkedIn’s Asia Pacific vice president of talent and learning solutions, Feon Ang,
said that reflects the diversity of skills needed for the future workplace.
If we look at the top 10 courses in Singapore, as well as globally, we’re seeing six out
of the 10 courses are actually soft skills-related.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has led more people to think about
safeguarding themselves in an unpredictable future.
It’s a combination of the lockdown really challenging people to say
what else do they need to do to upgrade themselves.
I think there’s also the need in terms of how they’re seeing companies moving.
The hiring has decreased in some major sectors.
For example, in the construction, in the consumer goods.
And in order for you to be staying in the workforce, people just need to pick up new skills.
Since the start of 2020, the most sought-after jobs in Singapore include software engineers,
business development managers, project managers and business analysts.
Meanwhile, its top trending skills include project management, JavaScript,
Java and sales management.
That has placed Kevin in good stead for the future.
That sense of satisfaction that you get when you manage to write a code that runs well,
and you get your desired results.
That clicked for me.
As of August 2020, 96% of General Assembly’s
immersive program graduates secured a job within 180 days.
The course is one of several initiatives designed to equip citizens
with the skills needed for a digital future.
In 2015, the government unveiled SkillsFuture, a national movement at encouraging lifelong learning,
with S$1,000 in credit given to every Singaporean aged over 25.
Of that amount, S$500 was allocated in 2020 as the pandemic forced many businesses —
and even industries — to modernize quickly.
Singaporean venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures, an early backer of some of the region’s
rising companies including Gojek, Carousell and Redmart, has a knack for identifying future trends.
One of the bigger questions we got from our investors were,
what are some of the big trends that you’re seeing?
And it was more about trends you already saw end of last year and beginning of this year,
and it just accelerated over the last few months.
The pandemic has supercharged rising industries that have moved to embrace technology,
says Michael Lints, a partner at Golden Gate Ventures.
Examples include education, healthcare, logistics, retail and agriculture.
People now understand that tech is here to stay.
If you look at homeschooling.
Anything related to e-commerce or logistics, a big boom.
If it’s around productivity, we see a big uptick.
Invoicing online, accounting online, all of those companies are really picking up really fast.
And we’re seeing more and more companies that are now advantageous
in the AI space and deep tech as well.
That could present new opportunities for people who can develop specific expertise
in these high-growth areas.
Getting a skillset in something that is new and making sure that you’re able to implement
it in a business case is becoming more and more important.
Or even mid-career workers who are reinventing themselves.
I’m pleasantly surprised when I see people that come from a very different skillset.
And they decide to reskill themselves.
And this usually comes down to someone doing a lot of research and a lot of analysis on
a certain aspect of the business or a certain industry and then become a specialist.
I think that is very valuable.
In fact, that ability to adapt and respond to constant changes could be the real long-term strategy.
Regardless of how the pandemic pans out, experts agree that developing a diversity of skills
and a mindset of continuous learning is the best way forward in a rapidly evolving landscape.
I think diversity of skills allow you to pivot from one to another.
The hard skills is essential in terms of the core job; the soft skills is one that is going
to enable you to work across different parties.
The current times teach us that we have to be very flexible and be able to adapt.
And so, staying curious also means that willingness to learn, willingness to take on feedback
and act on that as well.
That will likely be a win for proactive learners like Kevin in the competitive job landscape.
Picking up all these skills actually helps you to be more versatile in whatever you’re doing.
You never know that there’s a rainy day that comes by and you will need these skills.