In the current year, Singapore’s public engineers can look forward to higher salaries and more structured career paths. There has been a move to both attract and retain talent in this industry, which has been losing its shine as of late.
According to Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, engineers have, “played a big part in Singapore’s development over the past 50 years and have put in place housing, public utilities and communications infrastructure to improve residents’ lives.”
Teo Chee Hean also added that, “As we transition into an innovation economy, we need to build up capabilities in newer engineering and multidisciplinary fields.”
He made the statement during the opening of The Institution of Engineers (IES) building located at Bukit Tinggi. Continuing his sentiments, he stated, “We need more and better engineers who go beyond just designing, building, operating and maintaining public infrastructure and systems with their deep technical expertise.”
Mr. Teo said that the government is in need of an additional 1,000 engineers by the end of the year, if the country’s industry wants to rise to several important challenges.
To help reach this goal, Singapore plans to introduce a leadership program that will groom engineers meant to take on the following positions: chief technologists, chief engineers, public agencies specialists, and chief scientists in ministries. These efforts are expected to help public engineers “continually refresh and upgrade their skills.”
To ensure that “engineers are fairly compensated for the work they do,” the Minister stated that a salary review would be conducted by the end of the year.
Elaborating on the issue, he stated, “Specifically, we will be revising the salaries for fresh graduate engineers, as well as in-service engineers to keep pace with market benchmarks.” Further details about these initiatives are expected to be announced at the Committee of Supply debate happening in April 2016.
The IES President, Mr. Chong Kee Sen, believes the changes will be a “good start” to attract more qualified talent to the Singaporean industry.
With an emphasis on the ability to use the new IES building to further professional development opportunities for workers, Chong stated, “Schools can make classes more exciting and employers can make engineers’ jobs more interesting.”