Special Address by President Halimah Yacob at the International Labour Organisation 17th Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting

Mr Gilbert Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organisation

Chairperson and Vice-Chairpersons of the Asia and the Pacific Regional Meeting

Tripartite representatives from member states of the International Labour Organisation

Ladies and gentlemen

A very good morning, and welcome to Singapore.

Singapore has been a member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) since our independence in 1965. We are pleased and honoured to host the ILO’s regional meeting in Singapore for the first time.

Having served on the ILO Governing Body for many years before, I recall many fond memories and your presence here today is certainly a delight to me.

As member states gathered here today, we collectively represent a region with enormous potential and rising influence. We account for more than half of the global population, and more than a third of the global economy. The middle-class, particularly in Asia, is growing. Our workforces are becoming increasingly educated, and digitalisation is reshaping our economies especially as smartphone penetration deepens. While we are in an uncertain economic environment due to high inflation driven by rising food and energy prices, we have been resilient and adaptable in the face of past crises. I believe that we can emerge stronger from our present challenges.

COVID-19 and Singapore’s measures to mitigate labour disruptions

Let me start by recounting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the most challenging crisis of our generation. Like many other countries, Singapore experienced an unprecedented economic slowdown and labour disruptions.

In 2020, our GDP declined by 4.1% in our worst recession since independence. Total employment fell by almost 200,000, or 5% of our labour force, by 2021. This far surpassed the employment declines during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. We took decisive steps to overcome the challenges and today our unemployment rate has recovered to the pre-COVID range, at 2.0% overall.

A key reason why we were able to move quickly to address the concerns of companies and workers, is because of the high level of trust that exists among the tripartite partners – Government, unions, and employers. They worked together in developing strategies to address these challenges, and in coordinating measures on the ground to ensure they were implemented effectively.

a.   The strong social dialogue between tripartite partners was instrumental in helping the Government target financial support where it was most needed, by expanding our Jobs Support Scheme. The scheme is estimated to have helped save or create 165,000 jobs, equivalent to 7% of our employed residents, on average over 2020 and 2021. As a result, the unemployment rate was kept low.

b.   Tripartite partners coordinated jobs and training opportunities, through the SGUnited Jobs and Skills package. This helped Singaporeans to access jobs quickly and pick up new skills to remain employed.

c.    Our priority was to preserve jobs with retrenchment only as a last resort.  The tripartite partners released guidelines at the start of the pandemic to help employers implement such measures.

This high level of trust among the tripartite partners, which was built over many years, has served us well not just during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also when we were faced with past crises.

a.   Trust is built when the partners honour their word. Workers are prepared to take a pay cut when economic conditions are poor to help save jobs and costs, trusting companies to reward them fully when the economy improves.

b.   This year, the tripartite National Wages Council pushed for wages of lower-wage workers to grow faster, despite the lingering economic uncertainty because they were the worst affected by higher costs of living. It is also in line with the tripartite committee’s commitment to pursue inclusive growth in Singapore.

Going forward, tripartism and social dialogue will remain key pillars of our economic and social policies and are crucial in helping us address three challenges facing the economy and the workforce:

a.   Uplifting lower-wage workers

b.   The increasing pace of digitalisation; and

c.    The evolving nature of work.

Uplifting lower-wage workers

Lower wage workers everywhere are disproportionately affected by economic upheavals and high inflation.

Our approach in helping lower-wage workers is through the Progressive Wage Model.

a.   This approach has helped to raise real income at the 20^th percentile of full-time employed residents by 2.7% per annum from 2016 to 2021, compared to the median income growth of 2.1% per annum, helping to reduce the income gap.

b.   Our Progressive Wage approach provides a roadmap to raise lower-wage workers’ wages at a sustainable pace, avoiding job losses, which could hurt workers’ livelihoods.  This is done by raising wages in tandem with productivity growth achieved through upskilling  workers and transforming businesses.

c.    By 2023, the Progressive Wage Model will be expanded to cover more than 8 in 10 full-time lower-wage workers.

Despite a challenging environment of high business costs, inflation, and economic uncertainty, our priority remains - to strengthen our social compact where every worker holds a decent job and has a stake in the economy. Only then can we develop a sense of shared purpose across all segments of our society, and weather the economic uncertainty ahead.

Increasing pace of digitalisation

Next on digitalisation, the pandemic accelerated the pace of automation and digitalisation in companies. Although the pace has now slowed down, the momentum for digitalisation will continue to grow. This requires businesses to adjust their operating models and redesign jobs, while workers need to reskill.

We initiated various programmes to support businesses, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises, and adopt digitalisation. For instance, we have developed Industry Digital Plans under the SMEs Go Digital programme to provide enterprises with sector-specific guidance on digital solutions to support their growth. These cover 20 sectors of our economy. The Industry Digital Plans are complemented by Government programmes that provide tools and financial support to assist our small and medium-sized enterprises in going digital. More than 85,000 SMEs have adopted digital solutions from the SMEs Go Digital programme.

At the same time, Industry Digital Plans also recommend digital skills training that workers should undertake to be ready for the digital transformation of their sector. This ties in with our SkillsFuture movement which enables Singaporeans to learn, develop new skills, and stay employable throughout their working lives. Upskilling and reskilling are increasingly a necessity for individuals to thrive, and it is important that government employers and unions help foster a culture of lifelong learning. The Singapore government subsidises courses for workers to pick up new skills. We also provide mid-career support packages to help workers stay employable and move on to new job roles.

The National Trades Union Congress and its affiliated unions support lifelong learning for workers by establishing Company Training Committees that deliver customised roadmaps for workforce development in participating companies, while the Singapore National Employers Federation supports employers in job redesign through various government grants such as the Productivity Solutions Grant.

Given Singapore’s small population, we are especially committed to embracing digitalisation so that we maximise the contributions of every worker and help them move up in their careers or to better jobs. In this way, we can ensure that everyone can make the best use of their talents and skills.

Evolving Nature of Work

The pandemic has hastened the evolution of work.  While work will continue to be an integral part of our lives, people now look for greater flexibility and want to live a more balanced life. Two key trends are in flexible work arrangements and platform work.

The pandemic showed us that flexible work arrangements are viable. The adoption of telecommuting has increased, and so has the adoption of flexiwork and staggered work hours which can benefit those whose job roles are not conducive to telecommuting.

If done well, these changes to how workplaces are organised can help improve work-life harmony, enhance mental well-being, and lead to higher productivity and engagement. It can also allow more segments of the population to continue working or to re-join the workforce, such as back-to-work parents. But the key is to do it well, otherwise it could just as easily lead to poorer outcomes. Through dialogue, employers and employees could ensure a better alignment of expectations and needs and create a more conducive environment for flexible work to thrive.

Another recent trend has been the emergence and growth of platform work, where digital platforms match workers to jobs such as food delivery. While platform workers value the flexibility accorded to them, the flip side is that their wages are low and there is a lack of social protection, a subject of interest to the ILO and many governments as well.

a.   In Singapore a tripartite committee was set up to recommend ways to better protect platform workers. It conducted extensive consultations with stakeholders involved in platform work.

b.   The Committee just completed its work and recommended various ways to accord better social protection to platform workers such as compensation for work injuries, improved retirement and housing adequacy, and enhanced workers’ representation.

c.    The Government has accepted these recommendations and is now preparing an implementation plan. The recommendations will strengthen social protection for platform workers in key areas, while maintaining a sustainable ecosystem for platform workers, companies, and users.

Value of multilateralism and the ILO

We live in an interconnected, globalised world where capital can move freely across borders and where extreme cost cutting measures driven by intense competition can result in a race to the bottom for wages and labour standards if left unchecked. This is an unsustainable growth model which also exerts tremendous pressure on our climate. The pandemic, impact of climate change and recent economic upheavals have given us another opportunity to rethink our growth model. This is where the ILO plays a critical role in ensuring a fairer and more inclusive growth model where everyone has a stake. 

The ILO is in a unique position to do so as it is the only tripartite agency of the United Nations, where the voices of workers and employers, and not just governments, are represented on crucial matters affecting livelihoods. The ILO adopts labour standards by tripartite consultation and agreement among the tripartite partners which provide important benchmarks globally on the fair treatment of working people. Through social dialogue, the ILO helps to develop fair and sustainable solutions for our society.

The ILO’s role is even more critical today where it is estimated that nearly 100 million people have already been pushed into poverty this year by the combined effects of the pandemic, inflation, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Other than standards, the ILO facilitates the sharing of good practices, helping us to look at issues from different perspectives.  While our national contexts differ, we face many common issues and can benefit from the benchmarks provided by labour standards and good practices which provide useful inputs for labour policies and practices.

Singapore is pleased to have done our part. In 2019, we ratified C155 on Occupational Safety and Health. C155 and C187 on the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health, which we have also ratified, are key occupational safety and health conventions that were elevated to the fundamental convention status earlier this year at the International Labour Conference.

We are also pleased to have organised the 2019 Singapore Conference on the Future of Work and subsequent ASEAN Future of Work conferences to provide more opportunities for partners in our region to discuss how we can address shared challenges and opportunities. We will continue to contribute actively at the ILO.

Closing remarks

The global economy experienced many shocks and setbacks in 2022. Speaking at an ASEAN forum held in Singapore this year, the managing director of the IMF described the outlook for 2023 as being “exceptionally uncertain”, and “dominated by risks”, including global financial tightening. Ms Kristalina Georgieva said that “we don’t know how long these shocks last, or what other shocks will come, and for this reason we need to rebuild and preserve buffers and be prepared to use the full policy toolkit”.

This ILO Regional Meeting provides us with a platform to unite in dialogue to navigate the uncertainties that lie ahead of us. We need to promote timely public policies in the region to respond to the new realities of the labour market, with social dialogue at the heart of our approach.

Thank you to the Director-General and the ILO team for preparing a comprehensive report for this Regional Meeting. The report sets the stage for meaningful and constructive discussions over the course of the coming days.

The work ahead for us will not be easy. But by standing together, we can transform adversity into opportunity, and forge our path towards inclusive growth and a better future for all. I hope to see an even stronger ILO in the years ahead. To achieve this, we have to count on member states to give their full cooperation and support to the ILO.