Kumaran Pillai: MAS director’s statement on SG dependence on foreign tech talent should be taken with ‘a pinch of salt’

Singapore—A recent Times of India article that called the shortage of tech talent in Singapore “a blessing” for Indians had a lot of netizens weighing in on the matter.

The article quoted the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Mr Ravi Menon, as saying Singapore needs to continue to depend on foreigners to fill the shortage of local tech talent.

On May 4, Mr Menon underlined in a speech that the “competition for tech talent is economy-wide as more sectors embark on digitalisation” and added that there are not enough tech graduates to fill vacancies.

Because of the large demand and small supply of local tech workers, he added that “we have to continue to depend on foreigners to fill the growing vacancies for technology jobs over the next few years”.

On June 16 (Wednesday), Times of India principal correspondent Avik Das wrote that Singapore’s “severe” shortage of tech talent is “a blessing for India and the Indians”.

In reference to this, entrepreneur Kumaran Pillai said in a June 17 Facebook post that Mr Menon’s statement should be taken with “a pinch of salt” and the focus should instead be on what can be done to address the issue.

First, Mr Pillai acknowledged that this is a complex problem, adding that he is “acutely aware of the problems faced by the industry”.

However, he added that while talent migration is a global phenomenon, it is uncertain whether it will continue on the same scale after the pandemic.

Furthermore, Mr Pillai wrote that remote work has become part of daily life and “no doubt, businesses will look at ways of using and accessing human capital in the same way i.e. outsourcing work to other countries is definitely on the cards”.

For him, the real question is, “Can we stem the tide?” He conceded that “short term reversal is going to be tough because of our shortage in talent”.

Furthermore, at the rate technology is going, a person’s skills become outdated very quickly.

“It very difficult for someone to keep up with the rate of change in the industry in the long run,” he wrote, adding that the Government’s skills development programmes such as Skillsfuture are not effective.

Therefore, it is necessary for the private sector to step in to create a local workforce with highly developed technical skills.

“Our businesses need to invest in our own talent and train our chaps on the latest and newest technologies. 

“The government should work with the private sector to develop a highly skilled workforce. 

“This calls for a multi-pronged approach to address the problem of shortage of IT talent,” he added.

/TISG

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Times of India article shows how shortage of tech talent in Singapore is ‘a blessing’ for Indians