Demand for people with specialised tech expertise is not restricted to the tech sector, says Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority.
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Singapore hasn’t been spared the layoffs which have hit the worldwide tech business since 2022.
Online market Carousell minimize 10% of its complete headcount final December, and Shopee advised The Straits Times it began a 3rd spherical of layoffs final November.
But regardless of the downsizing, Singapore remains to be investing closely in tech expertise. Efforts at hiring and cultivating tech expertise — in each the nation’s tech and non-tech sectors — proceed to be sturdy.
Singapore banks OCBC, DBS and UOB have every developed packages that practice expertise employees and put together college students to enter the tech business. OCBC, for its half, introduced in 2022 plans to rent 1,500 tech workers over the following three years.
And STLogistics introduced final yr it could make investments 1.7 million Singapore {dollars} ($1.2 million) to encourage workers to select up digital expertise like software program robotics. Singaporean telecommunications firm M1 launched a program to equip undergraduate college students with expertise like cloud infrastructure assist, it mentioned on its web site.
Demand for these expertise is not going away anytime quickly — within the tech sector and past.
Strong demand for tech jobs
Tech jobs have grow to be more and more well-liked in recent times.
In 2022, practically seven in 10 of all vacancies in info and communications have been new positions, which a report by the Ministry of Manpower confirmed was the best stage throughout all sectors for the third consecutive yr.
Across job vacancies, expertise expertise like software program builders and purposes managers continued to be extremely wanted, the report added.
That stage of demand is anticipated to stay because the economic system digitalizes, mentioned Terence Chia, cluster director at Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
“This has been a consequence of tech companies anchoring and growing their higher-value tech development and corporate functions here,” he mentioned.
On prime of that, demand for people in “specialized tech areas” akin to synthetic intelligence and cybersecurity is not restricted to the tech sector, Chia advised CNBC. Such tech staff are wanted throughout a number of industries akin to finance, manufacturing, logistics {and professional} providers, he mentioned.
Tech ‘powers all the massive banks’
In finance, expertise is the engine that “powers all the big banks,” mentioned Donald MacDonald, OCBC head of group knowledge.
“We want everyone in the bank to … at least have foundational data literacy,” he mentioned.
OCBC designed a program that equips workers with fundamental knowledge expertise and teaches them how knowledge can be utilized of their jobs, he mentioned.
According to MacDonald, the financial institution makes use of knowledge to grasp its buyer profiles and personalize every buyer’s expertise.
Data additionally performs a component in decreasing threat — OCBC scans each transaction to detect scams and makes use of algorithms to determine “who to lend to and … how much to lend,” he mentioned.
Another knowledge evaluation program trains workers in divisions like finance and threat administration, MacDonald mentioned. It has educated about 400 workers to make use of superior knowledge evaluation expertise like Python, which MacDonald mentioned will assist them “move beyond” utilizing Excel and different easy instruments.
“I see Singapore establishing [itself] as a kind of regional hub for A.I. and deep tech,” MacDonald mentioned.
Specialized tech expertise
IMDA’s plans are broader in scale: It has educated extra than 15,000 Singaporeans and positioned them in specialised tech jobs, mentioned Chia. The jobs span a spread of industries, together with monetary providers, wholesale and retail commerce, and schooling, he added.
Those jobs usually have steep studying curves however, Chia mentioned, program members obtain “on-the-job training and classroom learning” to select up specialised expertise.
One of IMDA’s packages places non-tech professionals by an “intensive, bootcamp-style experience” that helps them turn into tech professionals, he mentioned.
Higher schooling is not any exception. Chia mentioned “many leading companies” assist IMDA’s joint initiative with the Ministry of Education to coach and create job alternatives for tech college students in vocational institutes.
“There continue to be many opportunities in the digital economy for Singaporeans,” Chia mentioned.
Globally, tech corporations have reportedly minimize 102,391 jobs to date this yr, however the worth of tech expertise has removed from diminished in Singapore.
Source: www.cnbc.com”