A total of 122,500 professionals were employed as engineers as of
June 2015, of whom 6 in 10 were locals, Minister of State for
Manpower Teo Ser Luck told Parliament on Tuesday (5 April).
He was replying to a question from Member of Parliament (MP) Lee
Bee Wah, who had asked for the number of engineers currently
working in Singapore and the breakdown by locals, permanent
residents, and foreigners.
In the government sector, the “majority” of engineers employed were
locals, Teo said, responding to Lee’s follow-up question about the
number of engineer jobs in government agencies and statutory boards
that were filled by Singaporeans.
“Employing of the engineers will be based on skill set,” Teo said,
adding that some software and specialised skill sets were not
“readily available here”.
“We will always do our best to try to make sure our local engineers
are given a fair chance and opportunity to take on positions,” Teo
said.
He also said engineers had functional skills that were applicable
across different sectors.
Teo had earlier said engineers played a crucial role in Singapore
and were needed to grow key sectors such as manufacturing and
telecommunications. Engineers were also key to improving
infrastructure and driving the Smart Nation initiative, a national
effort to harness technology for innovation.
“We respect and we feel that engineering skills and engineers
themselves need to be recognised and rewarded,” the MOS said.
In a second follow-up question, Lee asked how many engineering
positions in government agencies were filled by foreigners and
whether the government would lead by example by employing just
Singaporeans.
“We have many positions with engineering grads filling up the
positions, both engineering jobs and non-engineering jobs. Majority
of them are filled by locals,” Teo replied.
“So we will do our best wherever we could, based on merits, to give
our local engineers, our local graduates… to be employed in the
civil service.”
Responding to a supplementary question from MP Desmond Choo, Teo
said his ministry was encouraging former engineers to return to the
industry. Based on feedback, there was a lack of engineers, Teo
added.
“We encourage them (to return to the profession) through different
programmes of support. There are already current programmes in
career support to bring them back, especially the mature
engineers,” Teo said.
yahoo