Building talent to support Singapore's supply chain and logistics industry

Singapore's Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo spoke at the second SCALA Graduation Ceremony for PCPs on 17 July, where she affirmed: "When I spoke at the inaugural graduation ceremony in May last year, Singapore’s full year economic outlook then leaned on the positive side. A year on, the outlook is more uncertain but not uniformly negative. The skies are a bit overcast, but there are still bright spots."

She noted that businesses that have weathered the storms have continued sharpening competitiveness through productivity, innovation, capability development, internationalism or restructuring.

In this backdrop, she emphasised on how talent is being nurtured in the supply chain and logistics industry, where e-commerce, data analytics and automated systems are changing the way many companies operate.

"Far from shedding jobs, the industry is calling for a stronger pipeline of talent in new roles to support business growth," she explained.

Thus, she pointed to the following initiatives to build talent in the supply chain and logistics sector:

• The PCP for Logistics Officer and Logistics Executive was launched in 2016, and since then more than 300 individuals have been placed into new jobs in the logistics and supply chain industry.
• WSG had initially expected up to 100 mid-career PMETs to take up the PCP for Supply Chain Professionals the programme over a period of two years. All the places have since been taken up.
• The capacity of this PCP will be increased - another 150 training places will be added to support employers looking to hire and reskill mid-career entrants who do not have any relevant experience.
• A new Redeployment PCP for Supply Chain and Logistics Professionals will be introduced, whereby companies will receive support to reskill and redeploy existing employees to take on enhanced or new job roles as they transform. For a start, 200 PMET employees will benefit.
• MOM will also introduce a Career Transition Programme for Retiring SAF Servicemen. The programme will be piloted with 40 servicemen and help to smoothen their transition into the civilian work environment.