NUS prof says Singapore may lose jobs to Malaysia or AI, but this can create higher-value jobs

SINGAPORE: An episode of CNA’s Deep Dive podcast from earlier this week tackled the issue of jobs in Singapore. While Professor Sumit Agarwal from the National University of Singapore and country manager for recruitment firm Quess Singapore, Karen Teo, explained that while offshoring and AI can be seen as threats to Singaporeans’ jobs, another perspective is to see this as an opportunity to create higher-value jobs, as well as for AI to improve the way people work.

When hosts Steven Chia and Tiffany mentioned Yeo’s and Tiger Beer, saying that some roles in Singapore had been relocated to operations overseas to places such as Malaysia and Vietnam, the guests explained that the key reasons are cost-saving and regional integration.

Work that is low-cost, space and labour-intensive, such as breweries, is likely to relocate, given how expensive real estate is in Singapore.

“So you want to move those things where labour is cheaper, especially low-end labour or mid-end labor, and land is abundant or cheaper, right? And that’s the strategic decisions companies have been making on where and how what to move at this point,” the professor said.

Ms Yeo pointed out, meanwhile, that this is not a new phenomenon, and that offshoring jobs has been happening over the past decade. Even data centres, she added, are being set up in Malaysia, as Singapore does not have the space for them.

However, while shared service roles such as customer care, HR, and marketing are also likely to be relocated outside of Singapore, higher-value jobs are still retained in the city-state.

The guests explained that these are leadership, project management, and specialist roles, and Singapore’s environment of efficiency, high compliance, rule of law, and credibility remains attractive.

Prof Sumit also gave the example of roles in Research and Development (R&D) as being hard to move away from Singapore.

“For that, you need extremely high talent, and you cannot pay those kinds of salaries for people living in Malaysia or in Vietnam. They will be just so out of whack for the average distribution of salaries there… and so those people want to come here. Talented people whom you want to attract don’t want to go to Malaysia or Vietnam. and they want to come to Singapore because they like the lifestyle here, and so those jobs will always be here,” he said.

Prof Sumit added that when Singapore loses jobs to Malaysia, it makes space for higher-value jobs related to the jobs that were lost to be created.

Ms Teo agreed, saying that job evolution occurs with economic growth, as some roles are lost as other jobs are transformed.

“The more important question is how people working in Singapore can upgrade themselves to match this,” she added.

And as people upgrade their skills, what the government needs to do is to keep an eye on the jobs that are leaving and the industries that are emerging, in order to attract them to Singapore, as opposed to other high-end cities such as Dubai or London. 

“They need to come to Singapore because Singapore is the hub to bring in the high-end jobs,” the professor said.

As for AI, Ms Teo added that she often hears concerns about it replacing people’s work. She said, “I would rather look at it from the perspective of how I can embrace AI to make my work more efficient? I genuinely feel that AI will change the way work is done, not where work is done. So it’s not just about you know Malaysia, Vietnam or whichever region, but you know we really need to start understanding how AI can actually improve our workflow… how can you embrace AI in the way we work.” /TISG

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