Upskilling for Non-PMETs: Challenges and Opportunities in the Policy Landscape

Against the background of rapid technological change and globalisation, worker upskilling and reskilling is an important plank of Singapore’s manpower policy. It serves not only Singapore’s economic interests, but its social imperatives too, as the country strives to forge an inclusive society. However, Singapore’s non-professionals, managers, executives and technicians (non-PMETs) workers—who are at greatest risk of job redundancies—lag behind their PMET peers in training participation. This paper analyses existing policy measures to encourage skills upgrading among non-PMETs, before examining the case studies of Denmark and Norway. The paper then delves into five recommendations to make training accessible to as many non-PMETs as possible, and encourage higher training participation among them. The recommendations underline the need for a holistic and customised approach to create a more conducive policy environment for non-PMET training.