Study: Top 5 concerns SG employees have about digitalisation

Employees in Singapore are most concerned with job displacement by technology. According to the Emerging Jobs & Skills Report by NTUC Learning Hub, close to four in five employees said that COVID-19 has brought about digital transformation to a large or moderate extent which led to 81% of employees admitting that they are either "very concerned", "concerned", or "somewhat concerned" about the impact of digitalisation on jobs in their industry. 

Employees working in "built environment" were found to be most concerned about the impact of digitalisation (91%), while those working in manufacturing were the least concerned (76%).

At the same time, 93% of employees either "strongly agree", "agree" or "somewhat agree" that there is a need to upgrade their skills to keep themselves relevant in their current role, as compared to 91% the previous year. Employees in essential domestic services felt the strongest need to upskill in order to stay relevant in their current job (98%), whereas employees in built environment are the least likely to say so (91%). This is in contrast with the year before, where employees from built environment felt the strongest need to upskill to remain relevant (96%).

When it comes to digitalisation in the workplace, learning new skills to stay relevant (46%), fear of not being able to adapt to new and complex skills (40%) and lack of support from the company in skills training were among the top concerns for employees. About a third also raised concerns such as the company's lack of agility to upgrade to new digital solutions (33%) and fear of being replaced due to a lack of skills (31%).

However, the majority still believe that technology cannot entirely replace the role of humans in the workforce. 

Two in five (40%) employees said that technology adoption can only replace certain roles, and 30% said that technology cannot replace soft skills such as communications and EQ. Close to one in four employees also said that technology will not be able to take on creative tasks (24%) nor replace decision making skills (23%). At the same time, about three in 10 (29%) said that technology will lead to an overall decrease in jobs.

Fear of displacement leads to upskilling

The report also found that fear of displacement by technology is not the only driving factor for upskilling. About two-thirds (66%) of employees said that they upskill to attain better career progression opportunities. Better pay (58%), better match with skillsets (50%) and wanting to explore new roles (46%) were also cited as driving factors for upskilling. Only 37% of employees said that they upskill for fear of being laid off.

Healthcare remains the most appealing industry that employees are interested to move into after they have upskilled (24%), followed by infocomm technology (23%) and environmental services (18%). In comparison, healthcare was still the top industry employees were interested to enter the year before (31%), followed by biopharmaceuticals manufacturing (23%) and infocomm technology (21%). 

The report is based on responses from over 650 working professionals in Singapore, who were surveyed at the start of December 2021. The respondents included 450 full-time working employees with a reporting manager, and 200 employers to uncover a dual perspective about the current job market, emerging jobs and skills as well as the training landscape in Singapore.

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