Skills and Workforce Development Agency Bill

I declare my interest as the owner and director of a company that provides software to training providers.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the SWDA Bill officially consolidates career and employment services with skills training under a single administrative mandate. This is a welcome integration.

First, it has the potential to eliminate institutional silos. This lowers the risk of skills development and training occurring without an active alignment to available job frequencies.

Second, it could prevent fragmented journeys of jobseekers, reducing the friction for Singaporeans. Who previously had to navigate disparate digital platforms and physical agency locations for career coaching and skills upgrading.

Third, it could resolve data administrative silos by integrating the training records formerly held by Skills Future Singapore, with employment and placement records held by WSG. This integration has the potential to empower career coaches to provide holistic data-driven interventions.

The Bill fundamentally reverses the 2016 policy decision to bifurcate the then Workforce Development Agency into SSG and WSG.

The Minister just explained that WSG may remain under MOM to focus on strengthening employment facilitation services and programmes, while SSG moved under MOE to enable it to work more closely with our IHLs to drive the skills future movement.

It is not clear to me why WDA had to split in order to achieve this. How will the Government measure the success of this merger compared to the 2016 separation? Specifically, what key performance indicators (KPIs) will the new agency use to meaningfully tackle structural issues in labour mobility and skills development?

The new agency's functions straddle both education and manpower. Yet, no current political office holder spans both Ministries. Does the Prime Minister intend to appoint a bridging political office holder, such as a Minister of State for Manpower and Education?

The Bill's Explanatory Note states that the Bill will not involve the Government in any extra financial expenditure. But surely, the cost of this re-merger will not be zero. Could the Minister enumerate the actual cost associated with this restructuring, including the budget set aside for rebranding efforts, the updating of physical and digital collateral as well as the integration of various IT and payroll systems, among other things, across the merging entities? Would the Minister share how this compare to the costs associated with separating these agencies in 2016?

The Bill specifies that the agency will provide for or facilitate the provision of career advisory and employment assistance services. Would the SWDA be providing job search assistance directly under this new integrated agency model?

Currently, the Government relies heavily on third parties, such as the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) and other private career matching providers. If the SWDA were to directly provide these services, it would be able to leverage its access to MOM data regarding labour market mismatches and real time hiring trends to adapt assistance in a more timely fashion to rapid economic shifts. How would the Government ensure performance accountability of the job search assistance provided by these external partners?

Job search assistance should not merely involve resume touch-ups and pointing job seekers to employment portals. Will the Government commit to a more intensive assistance in the job search process, particularly for those who have experienced persistent structural unemployment despite their most earnest efforts?

Let me set the scene. Today, many jobseekers apply for dozens of jobs daily without customising their resumes to the specific job descriptions. In parallel, organisations utilise automated tracking systems that filter applications strictly by their degree of match with the job description, sometimes discarding all applications did that that do not meet at least a 90% keyword match. Consequently, many qualified applicants may not get a call-up for the interview.

Will SWDA require job assistance programmes to guide job seekers on such technical skills? Will SWDA officers take on a more active role in bridging the gap between employer needs and candidate profiles? For instance, if the agency identifies a candidate whose profile closely matches a job description, will officers proactively pitch this candidate to the employer and advocate for them to be considered for an interview? While the onus ultimately remains on the candidate to prove their worth during the interview, this active matching by the agency would at least help jobseekers get their foot in the door.

Job assistance programmes should also actively bridge skills gaps in networking and help jobseekers leverage professional connections. Such skills are critically important and often not taught in formal schooling.

The Bill in clause 68 specifies the transfer of properties, rights and liabilities, which inherently includes the vast network of educational initiatives and career guidance programmes. Students should be exposed to different careers earlier, ideally starting at lower secondary level when they will be choosing their GCE "O" and "N" level subjects. This early intervention will steer students away from simply settling for subjects or courses they have no genuine interest in because they do not know any better. Would the SWDA work directly with schools to provide systematic and regular career guidance or exposure to students? This would shift the burden of career guidance away from teachers and allow students to have some exposure to industry experts as they decide on what career best works for their individual goals and talents. This would not only lead to better personal outcomes but also yield better long-term workforce outcomes.

To complement this early intervention, will the Government encourage university and polytechnic admissions officers to further expand their quotas for aptitude-based admissions? We must shift the admissions waiting towards an applicant's demonstrated passion and aptitude for a specific field, rather than relying too heavily on relative academic grade cut-offs.

Furthermore, will the Government work with the IHLs to afford students greater flexibility to make mid-stream switches in their educational journeys without the fear of having to start from scratch? This will go some way in creating a workforce of the future that is adaptable, brave and agile. Ultimately, these measures will minimise the systemic waste of public and private resources that occurs when graduates abandon courses and careers they were never genuinely interested in pursuing.

Next, I turn to the harmonisation with other partners.

First, economic planning. While the Bill successfully merges functions that currently sit in MOM and MOE, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) remains an underlying driver that sets the industry transformation maps (ITMs). The agency has been described as a job skills integrator. However, the roadmap for our industries is set by the ITMs under MTI. Will the Minister explain how this new agency will coordinate work with MTI to ensure that it harmonises its ITMs with training curricula in real time? Will the Minister be able to address the potential risks that by merging MOM and MOE functions, we are simply creating a new larger silo that is disconnected from MTI's strategic planning?

Secondly, the Community Development Councils (CDCs) have launched the Jobs Nearby @ CDC initiative to help Singaporeans find jobs closer to home. Would the agency be tracking the performance of this initiative and help train the job ambassadors?

Mr Deputy Speaker, good intentions do not survive without good measurement. Without clear published performance indicators, this merger risks the same fate as the 2016 separation – celebrated at the inception, reversed a decade later.

I would therefore suggest the Ministry consider the following KPIs for the agency as a starting framework to ensure better accountability.

First, the proportion of public training subsidies going to courses that yield documented employment outcomes within six months. Public expenditure must be rigorously tracked against its economic purpose.

We must move beyond simply tracking whether a jobseeker found any employment. The agency should expand the existing training quality and outcomes measurement surveys to measure whether workers are actively applying the newly acquired competencies in their roles six months after they complete the course. By doing so, we ensure that every public dollar spent genuinely contributes to a successful job placement or career advancement. SWDA should be required to publish these outcome-based figures annually.

Second, the percentage of subsidised training enrolments in courses mapped to documented Shortage Occupation List occupations. Parliament should be able to see year-on-year whether the public's training dollars are flowing towards gaps our economy has already documented.

Third, median time to employment following SWDA-assisted job searches, broken down by age band, professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) versus non-PMET status and by individual service providers. The Government now publishes aggregate figures for these. These aggregated figures will better hold the agency and its service providers to account. These are not novel metrics. They are the logical extension of data that SWDA will already hold. The integration the Bill promises makes these metrics achievable. The question is whether the Government is prepared to track and publish them.

Mr Deputy Speaker, ultimately, this merger must amount to more than just a mere reshuffling of bureaucratic boxes. Administrative neatness means little to the displaced mid-career worker stuck in a job search black hole or the young student pressured into an educational path they have no passion for. The true test of the SWDA will not be how smoothly it integrates its backend systems, but its courage to embrace transparent KPIs, its willingness to proactively champion our job seekers and its agility to move at the speed of our economy. If we are reversing a decade's old policy in the name of deeper synergy, the Government must ensure that this synergy actually translates into tangible, measurable resilience for Singaporean workers. Sir, notwithstanding the concerns I raised, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the Bill. Integrating WSG and SSG strengthens the effectiveness of Singapore's workforce and skills development ecosystem, and attests to the Government's ability and agility in responding to change in our labour landscape.

Firstly, I would like to thank the Minister for his opening speech earlier for reassuring us that workers, staff and employees in both WSG and SSG will not be adversely affected by this merger.

Last year marked 10 years since the national SkillsFuture movement was launched to promote lifelong learning as a national priority. In this House, I called for a timely review of services delivered across WSG, SSG and other arms like the IHLs and NTUC's e2i, to reduce duplication of resources and provide even more seamless end-to-end support for workers, jobseekers and employers. I am glad that this call has been heard.

The creation of SWDA responds to trends like increased geopolitical and economic volatility, new technologies and diverse career aspirations. Rationalising the ambits of WSG and SSG provides a strategic window to critically assess what has worked and what has not. Identifying where the gaps are, who are the underserved and what are the bold steps we need to take to ensure our workers stay afloat, abreast and ahead.

To this end, I offer three priorities for the next bound of Singapore's skills and workforce development ecosystem, what I call the three "highs", not "Hi" but "high" – high speed, high quality and high returns.

First, high speed. This refers to speed-to-market for training curriculum when new skills become in-demand and career transition programmes when industries face sunset. In a fast-changing and highly competitive global labour landscape, the earliest bird catches the best worm.

SWDA will need to accelerate operational speed by reducing administrative burden, sharing data analytics and consolidating support packages into a "one-stop shop" experience for anyone, anytime and anywhere. The success of this vision will depend on faster rather than slower clearance chains with joint oversight.

SWDA must also make clear to employers that delays in early job redesign and training investment will compound real costs through widening skills gap, tardy transformation and weakened competition positions, while early adopters who step up will reap strong gains and benefits.

This can be made possible by closer integration of training design with company training and transformation committees to ensure a smoother training-to-work journey for in-service workers. Furthermore, proactively undertaking job redesign can also ensure more immediate fit for freshly trained new hires, especially mid-career trainees whose freshly acquired skills, and track-record experience in critical thinking and business problem solving present good value to prospective employers.

High speed also in absorbing shocks, is also key during times of geopolitical and economic volatility, which are set to persist. The Government has done this well, for example, through the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce and Homefront Crisis Ministerial Committee. However, I urge that more can be done to support impacted workers.

Business restructuring and AI-driven disruption have slowed hiring and growth of entry-level jobs. Graduates across our autonomous universities (AUs), including our private education institutions in the past year, secured fewer full-time positions across the board. Will SWDA consider launching an extended and higher-value iteration of the GRaduate Industry Traineeships (GRIT) programme, with opportunities ranging from one to two years and with monthly traineeship allowances on par with starting salaries?

As only over 3,000 involuntarily unemployed workers received at least one payout, out of the 10,000 SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support Scheme (JSS) applications received and despite 60,000 workers expected to be eligible for the scheme every year, will SWDA consider reviewing the scheme's salary cap, criteria for involuntary unemployment and service delivery experience? For example, job matching and career guidance services can be integrated with the JS scheme to fulfil the vision of being a "one-stop shop" for involuntarily unemployed workers.

Following the European Union, South Korea and Vietnam's introduction of AI legislation and explicit classification of employment-related AI as "high risk", will SWDA require responsible practices, such as anti-discrimination risk assessments, human oversight and right-to-know transparency, when deploying AI-enabled human resources technology under the Workforce Development Grant (Job Redesign+) programme?

Second, high quality. Measures have been recently rolled out to raise the quality of training providers seeking course approvals and funding, including requiring more practice hours and suspension for those with low ratings. These are steps in the right direction. However, we must also be mindful that what is considered useful is different to every learner. Apart from audit compliance and learner satisfaction, high-quality job-related learning must mean industry application or validation, such as employer co-design, work-integrated learning, like attachments or paid-per-task opportunities, portfolio building and access to mentorship or networking. These increase potential employment outcomes for learners while allowing employers to assess candidates with lower risk.

For non-job-related learning for exploratory or personal interest reasons, high quality can be defined as learners motivated for further learning and future pursuits, as opposed to poor experiences becoming barriers to developing a mindset of lifelong learning.

I also encourage SWDA to review the quality of student internships as internship-stacking and credit-bearing internships become more commonplace, especially for non-university graduates whose starting salaries lag their university peers. This includes safeguards to ensure fair allowances, reasonable work hours and safe and meaningful tasks. Investing in high quality student internships will benefit the same employers when graduates enter the workforce.

Third and final "high" – high returns. Unlike other countries, where unions need to lobby for fairer access to training opportunities and employment support, Singapore has invested billions into our workforce and skills development ecosystem, and earlier than most. We also have a highly educated workforce with over 60% of resident workers holding tertiary qualifications, and over 40% holding degrees. On paper, this should translate into a highly productive and skilled workforce. It is worthwhile asking: do the returns justify our investments?

Granted, returns may be hard to quantify, as they go beyond employment outcomes, wage progression and training participation rates among vulnerable worker segments. Investing in a culture of lifelong learning and employment support has ripple effects on the resilience and diversity of our workforce. At the same time, a disconnect between training supply and labour demand results in underutilised talent and skills or qualifications mismatch, which drive employers to hire externally. In other words, we end up paying twice, once to train Singaporeans and again, to import foreign skills, while weakening the Singaporean Core.

In Singapore, we do not have a shortage of funding or initiatives. We have a coordination problem. Our workforce and skills development ecosystem has matured beyond the experimental, piloting phase. Moving forward, I submit that funding must be more closely tied to or even conditional upon outcomes, that is, whether quantitative, like time-to-placement, or qualitative, like more meaningful and autonomous tasks within work scope. Can SWDA also share its plans to successfully integrate jobs and skills infrastructure and management strategy to increase return on investment?

Time, skills and qualifications mismatches were raised as a point of concern in NTUC's recently released two-year study with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) on underemployment. This refers to when workers can work more hours or take on higher-skilled roles but are unable to or choose not to. We therefore recommend an expanded definition of underemployment and closer tracking of these trends. SWDA can develop a robust and centralised tracking system to track longitudinal outcomes of its various courses, programmes and credit schemes as well as workers' career health to ensure returns commensurate with cost.

To conclude, the creation of SWDA holds powerful potential for a higher speed, higher quality and higher returns skills and workforce development ecosystem, given the successful integration of jobs and skills infrastructure and management strategy. I encourage SWDA to boldly reimagine what learning and working can look like for the next generation and plant seeds early, just as the Government did with WSG and SSG over a decade ago.

I also invite SWDA to leverage the Tripartite Jobs Council as it operates within the wider workforce ecosystem to transform skills and jobs, because this will be SWDA's key ground like into the heart of workplaces and worker groups. Can Singapore become a leader in innovative and inclusive learning practices, such as peer learning through communities of practice, residency programmes and incubators for non-traditional career aspirations or non-traditional learners, like caregivers, seniors and persons with disabilities? Can Singapore accomplish a triple-win by fostering a workforce with higher productivity, higher resilience and higher flexibility to meet the needs of workers, learners and employers? If we continue to be proactive rather than reactive, I believe we can.

We must remember that today, we no longer just learn, work and retire. We learn, work, learn, work, learn, work, and maybe, retire. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support this Bill.

Mr Speaker, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, I support the establishment of the Skills and Workforce Development Authority. I hope that this newly established statutory board will operate in bold and innovative ways across three areas to meet the changing needs of the world and the Artificial Intelligence transition, so no Singaporean is left behind.

First, we need to make job redesign a priority. The latest survey report released by the Ministry of Manpower shows that among businesses which have already adopted or intend to adopt AI, more are focused on training and skills upgrading rather than on redesigning jobs.

This reflects a concern: that employers will integrate AI into existing workflows rather than begin with employees' well-being in mind by making their future work more valuable, meaningful and sustainable.

I therefore hope that the SWDA will invest more resources in and place greater emphasis on job redesign by making it a priority that will strengthen the competitiveness of our workforce.

Second, I hope the SWDA can address the gaps in Singapore's skills-based hiring model. Many surveys have found that the majority of Singapore employers still focus on the applicants' academic qualifications and certificates rather than their skills.

As one of the largest employers, the Government has also yet to begin tracking data on how many Public Service job advertisements include or omit academic qualification requirements. Mr Speaker, if even the Government has not made a clear start in moving in this direction, how can we encourage more employers to do the same?

I hope that as the Government leads the private sector in promoting skills-based hiring, it will also publish relevant data in tandem – for example, by tracking how many employers have adopted a skills-first approach in their recruitment process.

Third, and more importantly, when publishing data to measure the achievements of the new agency, we should do so from the perspective of Singaporeans and examine the tangible impact on their lives.

For employees, we should be measuring whether taking courses using the SkillsFuture training grant has improved employment outcomes – for instance, whether their salaries have increased – rather than simply tracking how many people have enrolled in programmes or utilised subsidies.

For employers', we should track whether productivity has improved after job redesign, rather than looking at whether employees have attended training courses or whether companies have received subsidies.

The establishment of this new agency is a fresh starting point. I hope we can also seize this opportunity to write a new chapter for the future of Singapore's employment and workforce – one that is told from the perspective of workers.

(In English): Mr Speaker, much of the conversation about workforce development and transformation has come from individuals who are senior enough to shape their organisations or by economists and academics looking at workforce transformation or the workforce from the macro perspective.

Today, I would like to offer a view from the middle. I speak as a millennial worker who has spent almost nine years in the workforce. I have spent my working life, so far, as an individual contributor, someone who implements strategic decisions more than I make them – a team member who is good at her job, but rarely at the table where such decisions are made. From where I stand, a lot of what workers have heard about workforce transformation has been directed at us. We are told, embrace new technology – learn, use, master. Do not let anxiety hold you back.

I understand why. Workers are the ones whose livelihoods are on the line. But we are only one side of the transformation equation. So, today, I want to talk about how the new SWDA must also hold employers accountable. I have three asks.

Mr Speaker, my first ask is that the agency makes job redesign a genuine priority. Currently, job redesign is buried in a sub-clause under section 5 of the Bill, which outlines the new agency's functions. It is defined as the review and re-allocation by an employer of duties and tasks among employees. I looked up where this definition could have come from. It appears to have been taken word for word from the 2003 Workforce Singapore Agency Act. Is the 23-year-old definition still adequate for the age of AI?

Job redesign, today, cannot simply mean re-allocating tasks between employees. It must ask a more fundamental question. Given what technology can do now, what should people be doing instead? It is the difference between a company that adopts AI by simply layering it onto existing workflows and hoping for the best, versus one that considers which parts of a job can be transformed, automated or augmented by technology, and then deliberately shaping the human role into something more valuable, purposeful and sustainable.

Early data shows a challenge. A recent MOM survey shows that the majority of Singapore companies have not adopted AI. Among the 28.5% that have begun using AI, meaningful integration remains limited. For companies that have started or plan to support the use of AI for employees, their focus remains overwhelmingly on training and upskilling and the provision of AI tools and subscriptions, rather than job redesign and career progression.

If we invest in upskilling workers, but do not change what they come back to – the same job scope, the same workflow, plus a backlog of work and emails that accumulated while we were upskilling – then we have not transformed anything. So, I ask the Minister, will the new agency be resourced and empowered to drive job redesign at the scale that Singapore genuinely needs?

Mr Speaker, my second ask is for the agency to close the implementation gap in skills-based hiring. We have invested significantly into SkillsFuture. Workers have put in time, effort and money into acquiring new skills, but too often they return to a job market only to be filtered out because they do not have the right paper qualifications or past job titles.

The evidence tells us that we have a challenge with employer behaviour. Singapore ranked 12 out of 30 countries in the inaugural Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-Institute for Adult Learning (OECD-IAL) Skills-First Readiness and Adoption Index published last year, where we fall short is not in worker willingness to upskill. It is in employer adoption of skills-first hiring practices. Only 21% of Singapore employers saw removing degree requirements and adopting skills-first hiring as a promising way to increase talent availability. And when it comes to employers who would not prioritise a university degree when assessing candidates' skills, Singapore ranked last.

The index findings confirmed what a 2023 Boston Consulting Group's Skills-Based Hiring Trend Report had already shown. While the United States (US), UK and Australia had all reduced degree requirements when hiring for university-level jobs between 2017 and 2022, Singapore moved in the opposite direction. Degree requirements increased by 5.3% in the same period.

And here is what is more concerning. While much has been said about making skills-based hiring a priority – and I recognise the groundwork done by introducing the skills-based hiring handbook and establishing the Centre for Skills-First Practices – it is unclear whether any of this has materially changed how Singapore employers hire.

I filed a Parliamentary Question last November, asking what percentage of Public Service jobs waived formal academic qualifications and employers' skills-based assessment as a primary hiring criterion. The answer I received was that the Public Service, our largest employer "do not track the number of job postings that do or do not include formal academic requirements in their criteria."

I also did not get a direct response to the second part of my question about target and timelines established to accelerate skills-based hiring across public agencies.

Mr Speaker, if our largest employer cannot tell us if it is moving in the right direction, how can other Singapore employers be persuaded to do the same? Will the new agency work with the Public Service to lead the adoption of skills-based hiring across public sector jobs?

Having already released relevant toolkit to support employers, will the new agency now commit to tracking and posting statistics on the adoption of skills-based hiring by Singapore employers? This could begin with a baseline that tracks the proportion of skills-based job postings, broken down by sector and employers' size. Singaporeans should be able to see year-on-year whether hiring culture is genuinely shifting or whether we still are, as the OECD Index found, bound by a stubborn paper ceiling.

My third and final ask, Mr Speaker, is perhaps the most important – measure what genuinely changes in workers' lives and not just what the agency has done.

Over the years, we have gotten very good accounting output: how many individuals assisted? How many programmes launched? How many events conducted and persons engaged? These numbers appear in annual reports, announced with pride. But does the completed course means that a worker's prospects have actually improved? Does the formation of a Company Training Committee mean a company has genuinely transformed?

I want to propose a simple but demanding shift from measuring output to tracking outcomes.

At the individual worker level, we should track wage progression and job retention. Track what proportion of SkillsFuture Credits were used for training that resulted in demonstrable career benefits, not just the uptake of SkillsFture programmes but the programmes' impact on workers' lives.

At the employer level, track whether companies are actually redesigning jobs and seeing productivity gains, not just sending staff for courses to access grants. Track if companies are hiring differently, valuing demonstrated skills. Are they also less likely to conduct retrenchments because they invested in their people before a downturn? These are harder to measure. They require follow-through and some courage in data collection.

The agency should also publish anonymised employer level outcome data by sector and by company size. Let Singaporeans see who is genuinely transforming and who is performing transformation.

At the workforce level, track whether anxiety is coming down and resilience is going up. Track whether wages and productivity are moving in tandem. Are the benefits of transformation reaching workers across the income and skills spectrum, or whether they are concentrating as they often do at the top?

I hope the new agency's annual report will from day one commit to tracking these outcomes rather than cataloguing programmes launched. If we cannot measure it, we cannot improve it.

And Mr Speaker, I want to now close where I started – as a Singaporean worker watching this transformation unfold from the middle. Most of us are willing to learn. Some of us have already tried. What we need now is not more inspiration or encouragement. We need a system that holds employers and that moves employers and workers forward together, and that holds both sides to account, one where upskilling leads somewhere, where hiring is fair and where success is measured, not in programmes run but in lives that have durably improved.

The new SWDA carries a mandate that workers have heard different versions of before and that is precisely why it should do things differently. Mr Speaker, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. For many of my residents – mid-career PMETs navigating transitions, older workers trying to stay relevant, caregivers balancing work and family, younger workers facing contract roles and SMEs struggling with manpower constraints – this Bill can have real, practical implications. It reshapes how Singapore supports workers and employers at a time when economic change is accelerating amidst disruptions driven by AI and technical advancements as well as geopolitical uncertainties.

Merging two agencies is a major organisational change. What are the key milestones and expected timelines for full integration so that workers, employers and training providers know what to anticipate?

Can the Minister share what safeguards will be in place to ensure that individuals currently in training and active job search continue training and receive uninterrupted career guidance and job matching support during this transition? Will service levels be set and monitored during this period to ensure that workers and employers are not adversely impacted?

Let me talk about supporting workers. Residents often share the challenges they face navigating multiple touchpoints for training, job matching and career guidance.

This Bill strengthens career guidance, training and job matching by giving the new agency explicit statutory functions from providing career advisory services, to developing and accrediting training, to delivering employment facilitation – enabling a fully integrated end-to-end support system for every individual. With integration, I am glad to hear the Minister assuring that the agency will strengthen personalised career coaching for mid-career and older workers as they face the steepest barriers.

Clause 5 gives the new agency clear statutory powers to support workers facing sectoral disruptions through career transitions, targeted training pathways and job-matching.

Workers in certain sectors like aviation, retail, hospitality, logistics and administrative roles have faced rapid changes. The new agency can be proactive rather than reactive to better anticipate sectoral shifts as well as work with employers and design training aligned with real hiring needs, for sectors undergoing sectoral transformation.

Can the Minister share how the new agency will use the coordination powers outlined in the Bill to intervene early in disrupted sectors to support workers before displacement occurs?

Let me now touch about flexibility of training. Many workers, especially caregivers, need modular, flexible or part time options. How will the agency ensure that flexible training formats and blended learning pathways are expanded to support workers with irregular schedules and those with caregiving responsibilities? How will the new agency ensure that these flexible options meet industry-recognised outcomes, deliver clear learning outcomes and remain aligned with employer and sector needs? This is important because it ensures that workers who need flexibility are not disadvantaged, and that the skills they acquire remain credible and valued in the labour market.

Let me now touch on supporting younger workers. I have previously shared feedback from our young residents which indicate an increasing trend of younger workers entering the workforce through contract roles, or have employment disrupted due to business restructuring or transformation. Many have shared with me the anxieties and the challenges they face re-entering the workforce after their contracts end, or when their roles evolve or are phased out.

Can the Minister clarify how the new agency will support younger workers whose employment are disrupted by restructuring or who struggle to secure stable roles after completing contract work?

A lot has been said about AI and the Minister too shared on this. AI is reshaping job roles across every sector, and workers need timely, coordinated support to navigate these changes. Clause 5 of the Bill equips the new agency to identify emerging needs early and develop and accredit training and provide career guidance for workers whose roles are being transformed.

Can I ask the Minister to also share what the agency can do to help workers understand how AI will affect their roles, access relevant training early and transition into new or redesigned jobs with confidence? Will the agency proactively monitor emerging AI trends and their impact on job roles and skills requirements? And how will the agency work with employers, unions, sector agencies and technology partners to identify early signals of job transformation, update the skills frameworks ahead of time and most importantly, ensure workers receive timely guidance and training before disruptions take hold?

Let me now touch on employers. SMEs often tell us that they are overwhelmed by multiple schemes and processes and a single integrated agency will simplify this experience.

A clear and streamlined interface for employers is essential if we want job redesign, training grants and manpower advisory to be easily accessible, especially for SMEs who often lack dedicated HR capacity. The Bill provides the foundation which empower the new agency to offer integrated manpower advisory, workforce upgrading support and enables coordination across job redesign, training and grant programmes. This creates the basis for a single, coherent touchpoint for employers.

The Minister did share that there would alignment of skills development with labour market data and integrated workforce development and transformation. He also spoke about the importance of partnership. So, I would like seek clarification on how the agency will work with the various industry players, industry associations, unions and sector partners to ensure that the SMEs receive timely, practical and sector relevant support as they navigate the workforce transformation and adopt new practices on the ground.

A challenge that employers frequently face is that training does not always match real operational needs. How will the agency ensure that employer feedback is systematically incorporated into training pathways and programme design? And will employers be engaged in curriculum design and workforce planning?

Finally, before I conclude, I would like to ask Minister to share what measures will be in place to assess the effectiveness of the new integrated agency?

Mr Speaker, the questions and clarifications I have raised – and there are many – reflect broader concerns about the potential gaps that remain, even with the consolidation of functions of SSG and WSG, and the clearer mandates set out in this Bill. Consolidation alone does not guarantee a seamless experience for workers or employers, nor does it automatically ensure that the new agency will be able to proactively address technological disruptions or uphold the quality and effectiveness of training and support across all formats.

These outcomes will depend heavily on strong implementation, clear accountability for results and close partnership with employers, unions, industry associations and training providers. It is this ecosystem alignment – not structure alone – that will determine whether the agency can deliver on the full promise of the Bill and provide meaningful, timely support for both workers and employers as our economy continues to transform.

A key point I pick up throughout the Minister's speech is that while the integration of SSG and WSG is important, it is the role it plays in building and strengthening the ecosystem that is critical. And Mr Speaker, I stress this point because I think it is a recognition that one agency cannot the panacea to solve all problems and the recognition that it takes all of us. I think the Minister touched on this about the need for a mindset and a cultural change and a partnership. I would like to say that I do agree with him, but it goes beyond integration. It will be really a whole shift in how all parties work together.

Mr Speaker, this Bill gives us an important opportunity to strengthen the way we support our workers and employers through economic and technological change. If we get it right, we can build a more responsive, integrated and future ready ecosystem that helps workers navigate disruption with confidence and enables employers, especially our SMEs, to transform and grow. I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, over the past decade, SSG and WSG have each delivered important outcomes. SSG has built a culture of lifelong learning and expanded access to training. WSG has evolved from a placement agency into one that supports career guidance, transitions and employability. Taken together, they have supported many workers and firms, and have laid the foundation for a more resilient workforce.

At the same time, AI and other technologies are already reshaping how work is done. This is affecting hiring decisions, job design and workforce structures. In this environment, the link between growth, jobs and skills is becoming less direct.

Sir, a worker does not experience the system in two parts. He experiences it as one journey, from training to employment, to career and wage progression. And the same is true from a business perspective. A business does not think in terms of training policy versus employment policy. It thinks in terms of whether it can access the right skills, at the right time and at a cost it can sustain. This is where the rationale for the merger becomes clear.

The intention is to create a more coordinated system, one that connects skills to jobs and jobs back to skills in a continuous loop. It signals a shift towards a user-centric system, where support is organised around the journey of workers and the workforce needs of businesses, rather than around individual programmes.

I support this. However, the key question is how this translates into a better experience for businesses on the ground. I have six areas of clarifications.

First, companies today trying to reskill and redeploy workers must navigate multiple schemes, portals and processes. Even where support exists, it is not always clear how the different pieces fit together. Similar programmes, such as WSG's Career Conversion Programmes and SSG's Career Transition Programmes, operate with different rules, funding structures and employer touchpoints. SMEs do not have the internal capacity to interpret policy intent, design training pathways and manage compliance across multiple schemes.

In a fast-moving environment, these delays directly affect competitiveness and workforce outcomes. I would like to ask how the agency intends to operationalise this user-centric model so that it delivers a genuinely simpler and more intuitive experience where workers and businesses can navigate a single, coherent pathway, rather than multiple disconnected ones?

And beyond the front-end experience, how will the agency address the underlying system design? Today, many programmes are designed to achieve similar outcomes but operate in parallel. Even if access is streamlined, fragmentation can persist behind the scenes.

Will the agency use this merger to rationalise and align these overlapping schemes into a more coherent, employer-facing system so that a firm pursuing a single objective, such as redeployment or upskilling, does not have to operate across multiple tracks?

A related point is preserving a strong employer focus. While the merger brings jobs and skills together, the third leg is business demand, which ultimately generates those jobs. Businesses are not just consumers of programmes; they are the source of job creation and the drivers of skills demand. How will the agency ensure it remains deeply employer-responsive and not primarily programme-driven? In particular, how will it prioritise skills that employers need now rather than courses that are easier to scale or administer?

In this regard, while not suggesting further structural changes, it is important that the jobs and skills system remains closely anchored to enterprise transformation efforts led by Enterprise Singapore and supported by the trade associations and chambers (TACs), which are closest to business needs.

A second area of responsiveness is sector-specific realities.

Different sectors face very different workforce dynamics. Manufacturing firms are upgrading automation. Digital firms are competing globally for talent. Healthcare providers are managing acute manpower shortages. Sustainability-focused sectors are adapting to new regulatory demands. Each requires distinct workforce strategies.

Feedback from the Singapore Manufacturing Federation suggests that sector-embedded models, such as the SkillsFuture Queen Bee approach, have been effective precisely because they are grounded in industry practice and supported by TACs. Even after the merger, it will be important to preserve and deepen this sector responsiveness.

I would, therefore, like to ask how the agency intends to retain and strengthen sector-specific expertise. Will industry-led frameworks, co-developed with TACs, continue to shape programme design? And will support remain differentiated for SMEs and large enterprises, given that the majority of our workforce is employed by SMEs?

A third area is the funding and compliance framework. The Bill introduces stronger powers around verification, inspection and recovery of funding. These are necessary, particularly considering past abuses. But in recent years, the cumulative effect of tighter controls had been longer reimbursement timelines, heavier documentation requirements and increased administrative burden even for firms with strong track records.

For SMEs, this creates real cashflow strains, as firms often have to carry training and wage costs for extended periods while awaiting reimbursement.

In this regard, can the agency move towards a more risk-based approach? Can we differentiate between employers with established compliance histories and higher-risk cases? Can audits be more targeted and reliance placed more on post-disbursement or exception-based checks?

Related to this is how sensitive business information will be handled. Businesses understand the need for verification but may want clearer safeguards when requests touch on customer confidentiality, intellectual property or regulated information.

A fourth area is capability translation. For many SMEs, the constraint is not access to training, but the ability to translate training into productivity. What SMEs need is more applied support, contextualised training, embedded learning and project-based approaches tied to real operational challenges. In this regard, will the agency place greater emphasis on applied, firm-level capability so that training is more directly linked to measurable business outcomes?

A fifth area is speed and responsiveness. As AI accelerates, workforce disruption may become more frequent and more compressed in time. From a worker's perspective, the key issue is not just whether training is available, but how quickly that translates into re-employment. Will the agency place a stronger emphasis on what we may call the "rebound"? How quickly and effectively workers are supported from displacement back into meaningful employment?

The use of integrated intelligence to identify at-risk workers earlier is a promising development. How proactive will these interventions be in practice, and how will businesses be engaged when early signals of workforce disruption are identified?

At the same time, many firms would prefer to redesign roles and redeploy workers internally rather than retrench. Will the agency consider strengthening incentives and support for such employer-led redeployment, so that companies are encouraged to build and transition their existing workforce?

Finally, Mr Speaker, there is the issue of service standards and transition discipline. As the ecosystem of training, career and employment service providers expands, it will be important to ensure consistency in quality, standards and outcomes across providers. I would like to ask how the agency intends to manage this as the ecosystem grows.

Sir, the direction of the merger is clear, but during any integration, there is a risk that existing schemes, applications and commitments to businesses may become disrupted or delayed. Many companies are already participating in ongoing programmes offered by WSG and SSG. These should not be slowed down or require rework simply because the administering structure has changed.

I would like to ask whether the Government will provide clear transition assurance that existing schemes, pending applications and ongoing commitments will continue to be honoured under their current terms and timelines, as far as possible?

I note that the Bill provides for transitional regulations over a two-year period. Given the scale of integration, I would like to ask what further measures may be considered should issues persist beyond that period?

Lastly, I would also like to ask whether the agency will consider publishing a service charter, setting out expected response times, processing timelines, escalating channels and sector points of contact. For SMEs in particular, delays in approvals or unclear responses can directly affect hiring, training and transformation decisions.

Mr Speaker, the intent of this Bill is sound. It reflects the need for a more coordinated and integrated workforce system at a time when the pace of economic and technological change is accelerating. As we move into the next phase of transformation, the success of this merger will allow Singaporeans and our businesses to navigate a much more complex and uncertain future with confidence. Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, this Bill is about bringing skills, career and employment functions under one agency. But that itself, is only the means, it is not the end. The real question is pretty simple: will this make life easier and clearer for Singaporeans trying to find their way in a changing economy?

In my Budget speech, I spoke about transitions and the need to have greater clarity, and I think that is exactly the issue here that we are addressing.

For many students, fresh graduates and workers today, the problem is not just whether support exists. The problem is whether the way forward is clear, whether there is clarity: in what jobs are growing, what skills really matter, which pathway is worth taking and who can help me get there? And that is why this Bill matters.

This Bill gives SWDA a broad remit across career, employment and training matters. It is meant to support students preparing for entry into the labour market, Singaporean's seeking employment or re-employment and employees seeking to develop their careers and remain in productive employment.

Sir, I want to speak from two vantage points that I have seen first-hand as an educator: pre-employment training students and continuing education and training learners. These are two different groups. They have different pressures. But both are really asking the same question: where does this path lead to?

And to me that is where SWDA comes in. In fact, if I may put it very bluntly and simply, SWDA must be the bridge between learning and work.

Let me start with the pre-employment training (PET) students. As a former educator, I have seen many students do everything right. They study hard, they complete their courses, they submit their work, mostly. They try to make good decisions. But as graduation approaches, many still become quite anxious. Not because they do not want to start work. Not because they are lazy. Not because they are not sure how to turn what they have learnt into a real first job.

Because they ask: fundamentally, does this qualification still matter? Will employers value me for what I can do? Do I still need more training? Do I need experience before I can even get experience?

This is what I would call the first-job gap. It is the gap between finishing a formative stage of life and seeing a real route towards meaningful work. It is in that gap that confidence can disappear very quickly. I have seen capable, hardworking and promising students lose their footing at exactly the moment they should have been stepping forward with confidence.

Some took temporary work while trying to find their footing. Some drifted into jobs beyond what they have been trained for, not because they chose that path confidently, but because they could not see a way into something better. What they lacked was not willingness. What they lacked was a clear bridge into work. And many parents are asking the same things in their own way: after all that effort, after all these years of study, is there a real pathway to a real job?

Sir, I acknowledge that the Government has already taken steps to support fresh graduates. The GRIT programme is one such measure. It helps fresh graduates gain experience and skills through structured traineeships and I find it very useful. But it is still largely help that comes at a point after graduation and this issue is now even more urgent.

The newly announced Tripartite Jobs Council reflects that reality that workers and businesses are already facing disruption from AI and economic change. If one part of that is to help young people and fresh graduates find their footing, then that only reinforces the point that we cannot wait until the end of the journey to intervene. So, we must shape the pathways earlier. When we talk about workforce development, we cannot wait until the end of the journey and then say: "Here are some portals, here are some schemes, good luck." That is not the pathway. That is a scavenger hunt.

So, SWDA must move upstream. That means better career guidance earlier in the student's journey. It means clearer signals on which jobs are growing and which skills matter. It means making internships, attachments and industry projects more normal, not something enjoyed mainly by those who already have the right networks. And it means making the school-to-work transition less dependent on luck. Our young people do not just need more options. They need better direction.

Sir, there is another group that I have also worked closely over the years, and these are the CET learners. Recently, some of them just graduated from their polytechnics and they messaged me about how happy they were to finish that line. They shared, over time, that their challenge is really different.

For a CET learner, going back to class is rarely a small decision. Many are already working and they have family responsibilities. Some are under financial pressure. Some have not studied for many years. Some are trying to recover from retrenchment, stagnation or simply a loss of confidence.

So, when a CET learner signs up for a course, normally, it is not casual. It is often an act of hope. They are saying: I am willing to learn again. I am willing to put in the effort. But I need to know this leads to somewhere.

This is a transition gap. It is the gap between returning to learn and actually improving one's job prospects, income, confidence or long-term mobility, and this is where frustration can bite hard because many adult learners are not looking for enrichment. They are looking for improvement. They do not want a certificate that just sits in a folder. They want to know: will this help me pivot? Will this improve my employability? Will this help me a role with prospects? And will these skills that I have learnt be recognised?

I have taught adult learners who came to class after work, carrying family responsibilities and financial pressure, like I mentioned earlier. They were serious, disciplined and were not there to collect papers. Their question was always practical: if I invest my evenings, my weekends and my energy in this, will it really lead to better jobs, better wages, or a more secure future? So, that is a fair question. In fact, that is the right question.

So, if SWDA is to succeed, it must not only support participation in CET. It must ensure CET is much more closely connected to job transitions, employer recognition and actual labour market demand. Otherwise, we are asking people to invest time, effort and money into learning without giving them a clearer route forward and that would be deeply unfair.

Sir, when we look at PET students and CET learners together, the lesson is clear. The issue in Singapore today is not just whether we have the courses. It is not whether we have job vacancies. It is whether people can move from learning to work with greater confidence and less guesswork.

This is why this merger matters. If SWDA works well, it can make that journey clearer, more practical and certainly, more credible. And this is where the merger in the right direction. It talks about moving beyond fragmented support towards upstream guidance, better triaging, stronger service integration and support that comes before crisis, not after.

Sir, I hope SWDA will focus on four practical shifts.

First, make jobs and skills information far more usable. A student should be able to understand what jobs are growing, what adjacent roles exist and what skills employers value. An adult learner should be able to understand whether a course is likely to help with employability, a job move or a proper pivot.

Second, strengthen work-integrated learning and applied exposure. Internships, attachments, project work and structured pathways into first jobs should not be left to chance. They should become more systematic, especially for those who do not already start with advantages.

Third, make skills-based matching real. Workers should be able to see what skills they already have, what roles they may be suited for, what gaps remain and what support can help them close that gap, and employers should be encouraged to hire with a clearer view of skills and potential, not just relying on pedigree shortcuts. This is also where I think we can learn from what is already happening on the ground.

Today, Singaporeans already have Government tools, such as MyCareersFuture and the Careers and Skills Passport to support job search and career planning. At the same time, e2i's NTUC AI Career Coach is trying to make career support more integrated and easier to use. The issue is not which platform exists or which platform is better. The issue is whether SWDA can make an overall experience more joined-up, so that workers do not feel like they are moving across separate islands of support.

Fourth, support must arrive before the crisis, not after. Too often, help comes after someone has already lost confidence, momentum or income. We need a system that can identify risk earlier and support people while they still have time and options. That is a smarter policy. And frankly, that is a more humane policy.

Sir, a central agency is useful. But an agency alone does not place workers. A good system does. And that is why strong tripartite coordination remains essential, including how SWDA works alongside the newly announced Tripartite Jobs Council so that training, transformation and job transitions reinforce one another, because people do not experience policy in neat categories. They experience it in much more simply, either I got help in time or I was left to figure it out by myself. That is the real test.

Sir, we should also be careful about how we define success. It is not enough to count how many people joined a particular programme, attended a course or received support. I think the real questions are: did they get a job? Was it a suitable job? Did they stay? Did they progress? Did their wages improve? Workers should be able to land, stay and progress. If SWDA is bringing skills and employment together, then it should also bring measurements together. Otherwise, we may end up celebrating activity without knowing whether lives are actually improving.

Sir, this also matters deeply for communities working hard to turn aspiration into mobility. Sir, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): In my work with M3+ Focus Area Four (FA4), and now as co-chair of the newly formed Economic Resilience Committee with Mr Saktiandi, it is clear to me that many Malay/Muslim youth, workers and families are not asking for sympathy.

They want clarity.

They want practical support.

They want fair access to good jobs and real opportunities for advancement.

And this matters because each group requires a different form of support; youth who are just entering the workforce, fresh graduates seeking their first opportunity, mid-career workers who are adapting, professionals who want to remain relevant and entrepreneurs who want to continue to grow.

In my work with M3+ FA4, this issue not just being studied at a policy level, but as a real effort to help job seekers and workers who are trying to adapt, upskill and regain their footing.

In efforts such as the digital measures that we have launched, it also demonstrates that different groups require different kinds of support – youth as early adopters, families as users that need guidance, the workforce as practical users and seniors as users who need to be reassured.

What matters now is ensuring that this confidence translates into good jobs, career advancement and economic resilience.

We have made progress in education and training.

But for many Malay/Muslim families, the real question is whether the pathway is clear for them?

Clear from school to employment.

Clear from training to a job.

Clear from unstable work to a better career.

This is where the role of SWDA must truly be felt on the ground.

As part of the efforts by FA4 effort as well as the Economic Resilience Committee, I hope we can work closely with SWDA so that the support provided truly matches the needs of different groups: whether they are youth, fresh graduates, mid-career workers, professionals and entrepreneurs.

This includes identifying growth sectors with strong potential, connecting our community to those opportunities, and building pathways that can genuinely translate into good jobs, career advancement and long-term economic resilience.

For me, this is not merely a matter of access. This is a matter of mobility.

(In English): Sir, if SWDA succeeds, our PET students will step into work with greater confidence, our CET learners will have greater assurance that learning can lead to real progress and our workers will move faster into suitable roles with less confusion and less anxiety.

Sir, in supporting this Bill, I hope the Government can clarify three practical points.

First, how will SWDA move upstream to close both the first-job gap for students and the transition gap for adult learners, so that pathways become clearer much earlier? Second, how will SWDA measure success beyond participation numbers, including whether people are placed into suitable jobs, whether they stay, whether they progress and whether their wages improve over time? Third, what concrete service experience should Singaporeans feel within the next one or two years in guidance, in matching and transition support that will show this merger is actually making the pathway much clearer. With those clarifications, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, today, workers have to reskill and upskill amidst a rapidly evolving economy in order to remain relevant and competitive in a challenging workforce. One of the ways that our policies seek to do so is by getting workers to undertake further training and education. Yet this, in itself, is challenging. Attending courses, often whilst juggling work and other life commitments, requires a significant expenditure of energy, time and also money.

As we debate the merger of SSG and WSG into the SWDA, we must ensure that processes and policies instituted in the new agency are ultimately rooted in people, a people-centric approach. They must lead to fruitful employment opportunities for workers and result in a deep pool of talent for employers to draw from.

A people-centric approach to skills upgrading should also be easy for training providers to navigate. Adult private education institutes established under clause 78 of the Bill will be under the purview of two Ministries: MOE and MOM.

However, given that institutions would have to satisfy both academic standards and industrial needs, can the Minister clarify what would be the new agency's approach should there be any tension between these two aims? For example, how do we resolve competing aims that may arise out of the short-term workforce needs of industry against a longer-term educational and development lens? How will we end up preventing the creation of a two-headed monster in this new agency? Specifically, what safeguards will we put in place to prevent fragmented oversight or conflicting directives within the agency?

Another crucial aspect of a people-centred SWDA is to ensure open availability of granular information for the public and policy-makers alike to analyse the outcome of the agency's policies. This is established under clause 5(1)(g), which articulates the agency's responsibility to collect and publish data on career, employment and training matters alongside labour market insights.

WSG's annual report noted that in 2024, around 40,000 local workers managed to secure employment via WSG and e2i's career matching services. Do we have data that shows that the opportunities matched and employment secured via these services do match jobseeker skills and qualifications? Effective job matching requires career advisers with wide networks and a deep understanding of their industry. What is the Minister's assessment of the Volunteer Career Adviser Scheme's effectiveness in job matching and what are the Government's future plans regarding the scheme?

Drilling down further into our existing programmes, the Career Conversion Programme and GRIT programme are aimed at mid-career workers and fresh graduates respectively. In addition to providing work experience, these programmes also provide participants a pathway towards full-time employment with their host organisation.

How do we ensure that employers are not exploiting these schemes as a revolving door of Government-subsidised labour, instead of meaningfully inducting participants into full-time roles in their host organisations after the programme is completed? Although retention data is available at the industry level via Parliamentary Questions, it would be informative to study the proportion of participants retained as full-time employees by their respective host organisations at the employer level, including how long such employees stayed.

As mentioned by my Sengkang colleague, Jamus Lim, during Committee of Supply this year, we could allow a maximum number of times for an employer to participate in a programme but not employ any trainees upon completion of the programme. This could be a start to help us identify if there are employers who may be exploiting such schemes for cheaper labour, ultimately running counter to the spirit of such programmes.

There was also a rush by many Singaporeans to redeem their expiring SkillsFuture credits last year. Yet were these credits utilised for courses and programmes that genuinely improved our people's employability or offer positive contributions to personal growth and development that trickle into other dive domains? A Forum letter to The Straits Times at the end of last year voiced a concern about the quality of some SkillsFuture courses – overpriced, with poor learning outcomes and laughable assessments.

Currently, SSG-funded courses are evaluated via the training quality and outcomes measurement framework, which surveys participants. However, such self-reported surveys may not accurately reflect the effectiveness of these courses in enhancing the employment prospects of their attendees.

To measure employment outcomes, we need to focus more on objective metrics, such as longer-term post-course employment status, in order to more accurately evaluate whether these courses genuinely improve employment outcomes. This analysis could be carried out, for example, using Central Provident Fund (CPF) data to determine the effectiveness of each SkillsFuture course.

While it can be argued that having these schemes are reflective of a government willing to invest in building the capabilities of its people, the jury is still out on their return on investment without sufficient data publicly available.

The Workers' Party manifesto includes calls for the Government to track and publish clear KPIs on the effectiveness of SkillsFuture and career coaching programmes. Such data may include the take-up rate, duration of employment and post-training placement. Having public data allows the public to know about the effectiveness of their schemes and will aid to pinpoint potential areas for improvement.

Also, while the Government is an active creator of early career opportunities, such as internships and traineeships, I also hope that we can work towards providing more opportunities for mid-career transitioners as well.

I would also like to make a few remarks on how we develop a significant part of our workforce – persons with disabilities (PwDs). If we wish to see the greater integration of PwDs into the wider community, the targets we set must encompass a wider range of factors. For instance, while the Enabling Masterplan 2030 aims to achieve a 40% employment rate among PwDs by that year, there are other factors to be considered as well.

While skill and qualification-related underemployment within the overall labour market was tracked in a recent NTUC study on underemployment, the Disabled People's Association (DPA) suggested in 2024 that these metrics should also be tracked for the PwD community. Coordination with SG Enable needs to take place to collect and publish data surrounding the retention of participants under the School-To-Work and Place-and-Train programmes to ensure these programmes' effectiveness and boosting full-time employment amongst PwDs. As many job seekers with disabilities experience demoralising hurdles when job hunting, a people-centric and inclusive SWDA should be attuned to the needs of PwDs, thus helping to address under employment among PwDs.

Although the employment rate for PwDs has increased to 34.7% in 2025, many PwDs have expressed concerns that the roles offered to them by employment support services often do not meet their career aspirations and skillsets. Interviews with PwDs by the DPA also highlighted the tendency for jobseekers with disabilities to be pigeonholed into certain roles, especially within the services industry.

If we wish for PwDs to thrive in our society, they should not be constrained to a select few job scopes. I hope that the SWDA would factor in the prior skills and experience of jobseekers with disabilities when job matching. Additional support could be regarded via an in-house accessibility office, which could provide services, such as consulting with employers regarding reasonable accommodations.

We must additionally ensure that PwDs have fewer barriers to access the wide range of courses available for re-skilling and upskilling. This is in alignment with Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which calls on governments to enable PwDs' effective access to general technical and vocational guidance programmes, placement services and vocational and continuing training.

Many PwDs were affected by the recent closure of Mountbatten Vocational School, which provides PwDs with higher support needs and avenue to pick up skills in preparation for a subsequent education at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) or entry into the workforce. For PwDs with lower support needs, many have cited difficulty participating in SkillsFuture courses due to accessibility issues. This is backed up by the 2024 Disability Trends report highlighting that 61.6% of PwDs noted that they found it difficult to attend training programmes due to barriers because of their disability.

While the Enabling Academy's work in developing training courses catered to PwDs on topics, such as AI and cooking, is important, in the spirit of inclusivity, SkillsFuture courses should be made accessible to all via the provision of reasonable accommodations, a point that I and others in this House have previously made.

Finally, what it means to be a people-centred economy. During the recent Budget Statement, the Prime Minister highlighted the outsized role AI plays in our economic strategy. In the domain of reskilling, this includes revamping the SkillsFuture website with an increased focus on AI and offering participants of select AI courses, a free six-month premium AI subscription. Similarly, the recently updated criteria for courses to obtain Government funding requires either certification from a course endorsement body, or 50% of the skills taught should be listed on the Course Approval Skills List (CASL).

For the CASL, in particular, the skills listed support good growth jobs and are important for Singapore's economy. While skills important to the social sector, such as social services, youth development and casework management, are included in the CASL, I believe we can do more to drive up our social service manpower capacity and overall interest in the sector. As I previously mentioned in my Budget 2024 speech, I hope that the agency would platform these skills in addition to economic growth drivers, such as tech and AI.

To conclude, while the SWDA drives economic growth by widening and deepening our talent pool, the agency work also affects the livelihoods of individual Singaporeans, and we must ensure that it is people centric. This involves untangling unnecessary red tape for training providers and broadening the types of data collected to monitor the agency's effectiveness in securing fruitful employment opportunities and outcomes for Singaporeans. Furthermore, the agency should also boost its capabilities serving marginalised communities, such as PwDs and ex-offenders, whilst promoting the people sector, not just focus on areas with strong economic potential. Notwithstanding this, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, this Bill comes at a time when our workforce is navigating significant uncertainty, amid economic pressures and disruptive technological change. Jobs are being redesigned, new roles are emerging and existing roles are evolving at a faster pace than ever before.

For many workers, especially mid-career and lower-wage workers, these changes bring both opportunity and uncertainty. In this context, the need for a more integrated and responsive workforce development system is clear. By bringing together SSG and WSG under a single Statutory Board, this Bill strengthens coherence across skills development, employment facilitation and career progression. The Labour Movement supports this direction.

Mr Speaker, workers do not experience their careers in neat, distinct stages. Skills acquisition, employment and progression are closely interlinked. Bringing these functions together within a single agency can reduce fragmentation and improve coordination.

For workers, this should mean a more seamless experience, where access to career guidance, training and job placements are better aligned. As this integration is implemented, it will be important to ensure that processes remain streamlined and responsive to both workers and employers.

In particular, we must ensure that this more integrated system delivers for those who need it most.

Mr Speaker, lower-wage workers must benefit meaningfully from this integration. They often face greater constraints in accessing training and career opportunities. The system must therefore be designed with their needs in mind. It should be accessible, adequately supported and outcome-focused, so that workers can upgrade without undue strain and see clear improvements in employment and wages.

In this regard, the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) remains a key pillar in our efforts. PWM has uplifted lower-wage workers by linking wages to skills, productivity and career progression. It has also contributed to sustained wage growth across several sectors. For PWM to remain effective, it must be supported by a well-aligned skills ecosystem. In this regard, I have three suggestions.

First, I urge the new agency to align training pathways more closely with PWM job ladders, so that workers can clearly see how skills upgrading leads to wage progression. Second, I encourage continued collaboration with tripartite partners to keep sectoral skills frameworks current and responsive. Third, I call on the new agency to expand workplace-based training, enabling workers to upgrade while remaining employed.

At the same time, sustained wage growth depends on continued productivity gains. Mr Speaker, I would like to ask how the new agency intends to support companies, especially SMEs in PWM sectors, to undertake job redesign and productivity improvements and better wage outcomes for our lower-wage workers. Can it provide more structured advisory support, practical tools and targeted funding to help companies adopt technology and better match skills to jobs? This will be key to ensuring that productivity keeps pace with wage increases and that PWM remains sustainable over the long term.

Building on this link between skills and progression, let me turn to the Careers and Skills Passport that was introduced in 2024 and also mentioned by the Minister in his opening speech. This initiative can complement PWM, particularly in sectors where wage progression is tied to clearly defined skills ladders. The passport provides workers with a consolidated record of their skills and experience, improving both transparency and portability.

However, one key question is whether lower-wage workers, especially those in PWM sectors, are actively using the passport today. If not, what more can be done to raise awareness, improve accessibility and encourage adoption among this group? We must ensure that tools, like the Careers and Skills Passport, are not just used by those who are already ahead, but also by those we most want to uplift.

How does the new agency plan to integrate the passport with sectoral skills frameworks, particularly in PWM sectors? And how will it support employers, especially SMEs, to use the passport more effectively in hiring and progression decisions? Stronger and more inclusive adoption can improve skills recognition and job matching outcomes.

Beyond supporting workers in employment and progression, we must also ensure that those who step out of the workforce can return with confidence.

Mr Speaker, as the new agency builds pathways to support individuals returning to work, this must include not only caregivers but also workers who have experienced injury or sudden illness.

As I have previously highlighted in this House, returning to work after an injury or an illness is often not straightforward. Workers may face reduced capacity, loss of confidence and uncertainty about how to re-enter employment. A setback in health should not become a permanent setback in employment.

At the same time, employers may be unsure how best to accommodate such workers. Recovery is not just a medical issue, it is also a workplace issue. We therefore need a more structured and coordinated approach. I would like to encourage the new agency to strengthen support for those returning to the workforce in three areas.

First, job redesign and matching. Jobs must adapt to workers, just as workers adapt to jobs. Can the new agency work more closely with employers to redesign roles and identify suitable job opportunities?

Second, skills recovery and transition. How will the new agency support targeted training and career guidance to help these workers re-enter the workforce?

Third, employer support and incentives. Can the new agency consider introducing targeted support for flexible work arrangements, such as a "Flexi-Work" grant to encourage modified roles, reduced hours, or even phased return-to-work options?

A phased return to work can make the difference between dropping out and staying in the workforce. More broadly, we must move from ad hoc support to a structured return-to-work system, so that workers are not left behind due to unforeseen life circumstances.

Mr Speaker, this Bill lays the foundation for a more integrated and responsive workforce development system. The Labour Movement supports its intent. Success will be judged by how well we improve the lived experience of workers – whether they can move with confidence between jobs, whether skills upgrading leads to real wage progression and whether lower-wage workers see sustained improvements in their livelihoods.

If we keep these outcomes at the centre of our efforts, this reform will strengthen both our workforce system and the compact between workers, employers and the Government. Mr Speaker, I support the Bill and I look forward to the Minister's clarifications on these points.

Speaker, we are asked today to approve the merger of two agencies. I would use this occasion to ask whether the system they inherit is the right one.

We often speak of skills upgrading and credentials. The real question is simpler: are we building real capabilities for our workers?

Here is where I think the Government has done well. WSG's Place-and-Train Career Conversion Programmes are – by the Government's 2024 evaluation – a success. Close to 18,000 mid-career Singaporeans were placed between 2017 and 2022. Wages rose by up to 6.5% by year four. Employment retention improved by four percentage points. And the biggest gains went to non-PMET and mature workers – the groups the credit-based system has struggled to reach.

I also would like to acknowledge the 38 Skills Frameworks that were co-built with industry, unions and professional bodies. They are a useful compilation of the skills and competencies expected for each role in these sectors.

But as those who have been hiring managers know: what is in the frameworks sets necessary but insufficient bars. You still need interviews and competency tests to actually hire well.

This success of this Place-and-Train employer-anchored programme contrasts with other parts of the system which are not doing so well, such as the credit-based, individual-based SkillsFuture programme.

The credit-based side of the system has struggled on both integrity and take-up. In 2017, a syndicate fraud extracted nearly $40 million through fake enrolments. The Auditor-General later found millions more in overpayments and uncollected levies. On demand: the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme – the flagship of mid-career upskilling, offering a $4,000 top-up – had reached only 28,000 out of 1.2 million eligible citizens by end-2024, which is only 2%.

I do not think this is an execution failure, but a flaw in the policy idea itself.

The SkillsFuture system of the last decade is an example of the individual-credit system: the Government funds individuals to purchase courses from a permissive provider market. Suppliers capture the funds; fraud is possible; links with entry-level capability are weak. The largest meta-analysis of active labour-market programmes – Card, Kluve and Weber, 2018, with 207 estimates across 200-plus studies – found classroom training shows weak or negative short-run effects, with gains emerging only at the two- to three-year mark, and concentrated on the long-term unemployed.

The populations best served by these programmes are the displaced and long-term jobless, not mid-career workers who need to shore up against job precarity or climb the wage ladder.

In France, they tried this model. In 2015, under President Hollande, they launched the Compte Personnel de Formation, a personal training account. Training hours attached to the person, not the job. The 2018 Macron reform converted those hours to euros – €500 a year, capped at €5,000, with higher caps for the lower-qualified. Then, in 2019 they built an app, Mon Compte Formation, a consumer-grade marketplace where any worker could browse, book or pay for any accredited course in a few taps. Employers and unions were disintermediated and cut out entirely. Twenty-one million accounts were activated. More than two million training purchases a year. It was one of the boldest individual-credit experiments of any major economy.

The result is instructive. TRACFIN, France's financial intelligence unit, recorded a five-fold rise in suspected fraud in a single year, from €8 million in 2020 to €43 million in 2021. Cold callers and fictitious providers followed the money. France spent the next four years walking it back: banning cold-calling, imposing co-payments that have since been raised twice, capping the most-abused course categories. France had the digital infrastructure, had the regulators and had the financial intelligence unit. What it did not have was any party other than the state itself bearing consequences for training quality.

The principal-agent problem is not solved by transparency, digitisation or individual choice. The chain of transmission of consequences for an individual credit system, from Ministry to agency to provider to learner to employer, is such that nobody bears the consequences of low-quality training. It is a principal-agent problem. No one is a principal.

The Career Conversion Programmes work because an employer is the principal before training begins. The individual-credit channel, by design, lacks that principal and no amount of enforcement can substitute for it.

It seems SkillsFuture has unfolded in a similar way. Can we redesign the system so that employers, not individuals purchasing courses, become the accountable parties? Not individual choice, which is what we have, but structured employer accountability: sectoral associations and firms bearing reputational and financial consequences for training quality. This would sharpen the Skills Frameworks too. Employers with skin in the game will push for a fuller accounting of what a job actually requires, not just entry criteria, but the tacit knowledge needed to stay and grow.

When funds are provisioned individually, the government defaults to input-side accountability: ensuring providers are accredited, claims meet thresholds and participants receive a certification. Whether the credential improves a worker's employability is not measurable at the point of purchase, only in labour outcomes, years later. The system optimises for what it can count, not what it should produce.

I think it is desirable to have sectoral associations and firms lead the upskilling journey directly to solve the principal-agent problem and consequently, invest in deep, long-duration training.

How do other economies solve the principal-agent problem?

Germany's apprenticeship system operates within one of Europe's most mobile credentialed labour markets, their Industrie- und Handelskammer or Chambers of Industry and Commerce certification is portable. The goal is workers who are chosen repeatedly at a premium, not workers who cannot leave. German apprentices earn about 15% more than the untrained two decades after entry, with lower unemployment risk and faster re-employment.

Economic skill-formation literature identifies three conditions for firms to invest in deep, long-duration training.

First, wage compression – sectoral bargaining that narrows pay differentials within a sector so rivals cannot simply poach trained workers at a premium.

Second, portable credentials – standardised, externally certified occupational profiles, so a worker's skill is legible to the whole labour market and the worker is willing to invest their own time.

Third, industry co-governance of curriculum – so that what is taught tracks what industry actually needs.

Singapore has the second of these, roughly. SkillsFuture certifications approximate portable credentials. Industry transformation maps and trade associations do consultative work that touches co-governance, but it is advisory, not binding – no sectoral employer body exercises a sign-off or veto on SkillsFuture curriculum, and no named individual's reputation moves with and is staked on the employment outcomes.

As I understand it, NTUC mainly bargains at the enterprise level rather than at the collective sector level.

So, I think we have neither true industry co-governance of curriculums, nor do we have sectoral bargaining to achieve wage compression. Some will say Singapore is too small for German-style sectoral institutions. Switzerland, population nine million, sustains deep sectoral bargaining and apprenticeship in pharma, watchmaking and machine tools. Size is not the binding constraint. Institutional architecture is.

I have two proposals.

First, sectoral bargaining. NTUC's current architecture is attuned to individual employer engagement. That is not the right vehicle for deep tacit-knowledge sectors. These sectors need binding sectoral wage scales, not just floors, but scales that compress the wage distribution.

Right now, a firm that invests in deep training risks losing that worker to a competitor the day after certification. Wage compression fixes this. It narrows pay gaps so poaching is not worth it. The return on training stays with the firm that trained. That is why German firms fund three-year apprenticeships at their own expense.

The PWM lifts wages for lower-wage workers, and it does so well. But it sets floors, not scales. It says to the worker: train, and you move up. What we need is a structure that says to the employer: train deeply, because you will keep the return.

Not every sector is suitable. Sectoral bargaining fits sectors with deep tacit knowledge – semiconductor backend, aerospace MRO, petrochemicals, marine and offshore – but perhaps not faster-moving industries like AI.

Second, co-governance with consequences. Named industry entities and individuals should have sign-off and veto on SkillsFuture curricula, not as advisors, but as accountable parties whose reputations move with employment outcomes. We must also lower the accreditation barriers that keep the most credible practitioners out. The Advanced Certificate in Learning and Performance requires 71 hours of coursework, screening out the domain experts we need and screening in those with time to spare.

For faster-moving industries – AI, software, frontier hardware – the fixes above may not work. Skills change too fast; firms are too few and too mobile. What works in these sectors is something different: knowledge spreading through people working near each other. That is how Shenzhen and Silicon Valley were built – rapid knowledge diffusion through firms, suppliers and people solving problems together, carrying what they learned into the next job.

We cannot build a Shenzhen-scale agglomeration on 750 square kilometres. But we can do two things.

One, engineer knowledge diffusion through people, not papers.

To produce an industrial commons here, first, we will need to revive the engineering society ethos. If we are serious about capability over credentials, the most basic question is: do our workers and engineers know how things work?

We need to know how things work at the level of teardown and re-assembly because that is the foundation of any serious industrial capability. The model is Munro and Associates in Michigan, which has spent close to four decades disassembling competitor vehicles down to the last fastener and producing the detailed cost, design and process reports that the global automotive industry treats as authoritative. Japan's National Institutes of Technology teach 15-year-olds to disassemble electromechanical systems in formal "Reverse Engineering" courses. The US military reverse-engineered the Iranian Shahed drone and fielded its own version in Venezuela at $35,000 per unit, versus $1.3 million for a Tomahawk cruise missile.

Understanding how things are built is not a hobby. It is a strategic capability. There is no reason it cannot exist here as public infrastructure.

I propose we establish physical teardown facilities at our ITEs and polytechnics – not as one-off workshops, but as a vertical curriculum progressing from guided disassembly to design analysis to cost modelling. We should reverse-engineer frontier hardware – electric vehicles, batteries, solar, drones.

Structured public reports should feed the industrial commons. Such facilities could also be housed at A*STAR's centres, which I understand already runs model factories and joint industry labs. Partnered with ITEs and polytechnics, with structured access for SMEs, they would form a strong starting point.

For ordinary citizens, the National Library Board's MakeIT at Libraries – its free maker-space programme run with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), offering 3D printing, digital cutting, robotics and coding classes in selected regional libraries – teaches the basics well. I have observed 3D printing and robotics classes there, and the starter sessions are well-designed. But the curriculum stops there, with no intermediate or advanced progression.

If we are serious about life-long learning, MakeIT needs a vertical curriculum – Stage 2 and Stage 3 modules, project-based, progressing from operating the machines to designing with them and using them more intensely – not just a wider menu of first lessons.

Our industrial clusters are well-designed. But co-location is necessary, not sufficient. Knowledge does not diffuse simply because firms share a postcode. It diffuses through people. Tacit production knowledge – the working understanding of why a process line behaves the way it does, what failure modes to watch for, which suppliers to trust – does not transfer through papers or seminars. It transfers through people, on the floor, over months.

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is the clearest example: between 1973 and 2008, 13,000 ITRI staff moved into Taiwanese industry, many of them seeding what became TSMC, UMC and the wider Hsinchu semiconductor cluster. Engineer circulation, not patents or licensing, was the primary transmission mechanism.

To speed up the rate of knowledge diffusion, I also propose an Industrial Commons Rotation: a statutory obligation on large firms – Government-linked corporations and major anchor MNCs – to second mid-senior technical staff into SMEs within the same sectoral cluster for six- to 18-month rotations, with reciprocal SME-to-large-firm flows so the small firms' problem-solving feeds back into the larger firms' processes. We can do this as a pilot in the tacit-knowledge sectors I named earlier – semiconductor backend, aerospace MRO, petrochemicals, marine and offshore.

If we want an industrial commons, we must make the people circulate.

Teacher rotation through industry should also try to be a statutory requirement. Polytechnic and ITE instructors can currently take industry attachments as a form of voluntary continuing professional development, but the mechanism is discretionary, not structural. I propose a pilot: 12 months in industry for every 60 months of teaching.

This is the first task: making the knowledge already inside Singapore circulate. The second task is to go to where the knowledge is being created.

The Overseas Markets Immersion Programme (OMIP), launched in 2024, is the right vehicle in form. In substance, it is far too small. The initial target was 250 individuals over two years; about 120 had been supported by early 2026. Salary support of up to 70% for nine months, capped at $5,000 a month, with a minimum salary threshold of $4,000 a month effectively restricts it to PMETs.

If I had to name one programme that could be reframed tomorrow at low cost and high return, it is OMIP. Three changes.

First, expand it by an order of magnitude – from a 250-person pilot to a 5,000-person annual cohort within five years.

Second, remove the minimum salary threshold for technical and operational roles in priority sectors, so ITE-trained engineers and polytechnic graduates can be deployed to cutting-edge manufacturing clusters in China, Japan and Europe – not only PMETs in regional roles.

Third, reframe the strategic purpose. OMIP is currently designed as outbound business development support – helping Singapore companies expand into new markets. It should also be inbound knowledge acquisition – sending Singaporeans to where manufacturing knowledge is being created, to bring it back. The architecture is broad enough to hold both, if we choose to use it that way.

Sir, in closing. The deepest lesson of the last decade of skills policy, here and abroad, is this: the state cannot substitute for the firm as the principal in a worker's training. We have spent 10 years and considerable public money trying. The next 10 years should be spent designing the system in which sectors and firms – and the workers themselves, through their unions – are forced to care about the answer.

Sectoral co-governance with named accountability. Sectoral bargaining where tacit knowledge is deep. Engineered knowledge diffusion where it is not. And an order-of-magnitude expansion of how we send Singaporeans to where cutting-edge knowledge actually lives.

Capability is tacit knowledge. It deepens inside sectors and firms, which is why we need sectoral architecture that holds workers there long enough for it to form. And it circulates through an industrial commons – which is why we need engineers, instructors, and Singaporeans abroad moving through that commons, carrying knowledge with them. The state is an orchestrator, it builds the architecture in which both happen. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, I declare my interest that SSG and WSG are represented by the Amalgamated Union of Public Employees where I am the general secretary, and the new agency will be in due course.

Mr Speaker, across Singapore today, as many of the hon Members have highlighted as well, there is much anxiety among workers. In the PME who has just been made redundant, in the fresh graduate sending out applications that go unanswered, in the 58-year-old who wonders if anyone will hire him again, in the caregiver who stepped away for five years now does not know how to step back in.

These are not statistics. These are people. And they are watching us today. They want to know how will SWDA do better.

I rise to support this Bill because the merger of SSG and WSG is just not good policy. It is the right thing to do for every Singaporean worker.

Mr Speaker, for years we have operated with the logical but limiting division of labour: SSG accredited courses and administered SkillsFuture credits; WSG managed career conversion, hiring incentives and improved job matching. Two agencies, two mandates, two systems.

But here is the truth: learning and working are not two separate journeys. They are one.

When these two functions live in separate houses, workers and jobseekers fall through the gaps between them. They complete a course and find no pathway to a job. They get placed in a job with no support to grow. We called it an ecosystem. For many workers, it felt like a maze.

The merger closes that gap. It signals that a course without a career pathway is incomplete and a job placement without skills development is unsustainable.

Mr Speaker, training is not the destination. It is the vehicle. We have celebrated completion rates. We have counted the number of courses taken, credits used, certificates earned. While those numbers matter, they are not the finish line.

The finish line is this: did training lead to a better job? A higher wage? A worker who feels more secure, more valued, more able to provide for their family?

Because if a worker sacrifices evenings and weekends to attend training, pushes through self-doubt and emerges with a certificate that leads nowhere or worse, leads to a job that pays the same, or continues receiving job application rejections as before, then we have failed them. The training system has taken their time, resources and their hope but have returned nothing of real value.

The new agency's mandate must be clear: measure outcomes, not just outputs.

What does real outcome look like? An increase in real wages. Progression to a higher-value role, not a lateral transfer, not a downgrade. A worker with the dignity of a career that moves forward and upwards.

Course accreditation must no longer ask only if this course is well-designed? It must ask: does this course lead to real employment and real outcomes? Does it lead to wage and career progression? Is it connected to industries that are hiring, and hiring at fair wages?

The merged agency now has access to both SSG's training ecosystem and WSG's employment data. It can see both sides of the equation. That intelligence must be used boldly.

And to employers, I say this directly: the social compact must be both ways. When a worker reskills, their wage, the title must reflect that upgrade. Hiring a reskilled worker at the same salary as before is not transformation; it is tokenism.

Better training must mean better jobs. Better jobs must mean better wages. Better wages must mean better lives. Every link in that chain must hold.

Mr Speaker, I would like to make three specific calls.

First, publish the outcomes that matter. I urge the new agency to track and publish time-to-placement, wage growth post-training and job-fit rates. Not buried in annual reports. Visible, searchable, accountable – these indicators will help to keep the system honest.

Second, scale sector-level transformation to reach SMEs. We already have strong models. The SkillsFuture Queen Bee initiative, working alongside NTUC's Company Training Committees, has delivered real results. At ST Engineering, jobs were redesigned, workers were upgraded, productivity improved. Through the SSG-NTUC-FairPrice Group partnership, 1,000 workers across their SME supplier network are being upskilled, lifting the entire ecosystem, not just one company.

But these remain uneven successes. Many SMEs are not plugged into these ecosystems. This is why SWDA should leverage the upcoming Tripartite Jobs Council more as a greater partner than just a consultative forum. It should see the Tripartite Jobs Council as a driver on the ground coordination amidst all this AI disruption, to bring about sector-wide transformation so that good jobs and sustained careers reach whole industries and not just flagship firms.

SWDA should see the advantages of tapping on the strengths of tripartite partners like NTUC and the Singapore National Employers Federation to reach the employers and workers.

Third, worker voice in governance. SWDA will make decisions that directly shape livelihoods and career paths of hundreds of Singaporeans. I ask: will there be worker representation at the board level and not just through consultations but as part of the governance structure itself?

A worker voice is not symbolic. It grounds the agency in reality whether training leads to real jobs, whether transitions are navigable, whether policies reflect what happens in the workplaces.

Mr Speaker, this promise must reach everyone. For mid-career workers, the new agency must be a lifeline. Income support, skills training and job placement must be delivered as a package and not patchwork. A worker who needs six months to reskill cannot survive on willpower alone. And at the end of that journey, there must be a job waiting.

For senior workers above 50, we must be honest. Ageism still exists in our hiring landscape. The new agency must not just train senior workers, it must work aggressively with employers to shift mindsets. Senior workers bring institutional knowledge, emotional intelligence and resilience that no algorithm can replicate. They must be placed in roles that honour their experience and not sidelined beneath their capabilities.

For lower-income workers and those without degrees: the SkillsFuture movement has always risked being captured by the already-advantaged. The new agency must reach down to these workers, not wait for them to come to the agency. Community outreach, vernacular language support, simplified processes and critically, training pathways that lead to genuine wage progression because they have the most to gain.

For young people from ITE and polytechnics, do not assume that they have it easy. Many feel invisible in a system that celebrates degrees. The ITE Work-Study Diploma has grown from four courses and 100 trainees to 45 courses and 1,600 trainees in 2025. The new agency must amplify this, creating celebrated, visible pathway for skills-based careers with competitive wages and real advancement so that choosing skills over a degree is never seen as settling.

Mr Speaker, the new agency must have these three principles to carry forward.

First, seamlessness. The same agency that funds your course must connect you to a job that values those skills and tracks whether your wages have improved. One account, one advisor, one journey.

Two, intelligence. Labour market data must ensure we never train workers for yesterday's economy. The agency must stay ahead of industry shifts, and recalibrate constantly measuring success in real wages and real career growth.

Humanity. Data and dashboards matter. But what matters more is that every Singaporean who walks into a career centre, logs onto a portal or calls a helpline feels seen, feels that someone genuinely is in their corner, not to tick a box, but to walk with them until they reach a better place.

Mr Speaker, in conclusion, I welcome the provisions ensuring that SSG and WSG officers transfer on terms no less favourable. These officers have built deep expertise, they are not just assets to be reorganised, they are the people who will deliver this transformation. They deserve clarity, investment and pathways to grow alongside the agency that they are building.

The merger of SSG and WSG gives us the chance to build something better: a single, powerful, compassionate agency that does not just create programmes to train and place workers but to transform their lives. Because better training must lead to better jobs. Better jobs must lead to better wages. And better wages must lead to better lives for every Singaporean, without an exception. No worker left behind. One agency. One vision. Mr Speaker, I support the Bill. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the SWDA Bill. This is a significant and forward-looking Bill. It reflects a deeper shift in how we think about jobs, skills and careers in Singapore.

At its core, this Bill recognises a structural reality, that skills development and employment outcomes can no longer be treated as separate policy domains. So, training and employment must connect more tightly, not only in policy design, but in how Singaporeans experience the system.

The merger of SSG and WSG into a single agency is therefore not just an administrative consolidation. It is a deliberate move towards a more integrated, end-to-end workforce system. In the next decade, we should be measuring success by not how many courses a worker attends but how many transitions are completed into good jobs with progression.

Mr Speaker, Sir, my first point is about integrating with the labour market.

Today, training and employment are delivered by separate agencies and both have done commendable work. But separation can create a gap. Skills are acquired, but jobs may not follow. Workers may complete courses without clear pathways into employment. At the same time, employers may report difficulty finding job-ready talent.

Some residents have shared these concerns with me. They are middle-aged, mid-career PMETs who have lost their jobs. They made the effort to upskill. They used their SkillsFuture subsidies and trained in areas like AI, data analysis and project management. Yet despite their efforts, they still find it difficult to secure work that is commensurate with their skills and seniority. Some have also shared that while they are prepared to learn, they are less clear about what a realistic entry point looks like when moving into a brand new sector.

Mr Speaker, Sir, one issue I have observed is expectations. When some mid-career workers used SkillsFuture to take courses in high demand areas like AI, data or project management, product management, they may understandably hope to re-enter at the same level of seniority and remuneration they previously held.

But in practice, they are competing with candidates who already have track records in these sectors and employers may be hiring for proven experience, not only course completion. When outcomes do not match expectations, some become discouraged, disgruntled and conclude that their training did not work even though the real barrier may be the entry point into a new industry.

This raises a policy question for the new agency. Could the Minister clarify how the new agency will position SkillsFuture as a pathway for sector entry and conversion or as a pathway for in sector progression? Because the citizens advice and expectations differ in each case. If we try to signal both at once, we risk sending mixed messages and confusing citizens at the very point that they seek and need clarity.

I therefore suggest that the new agency consider finetuning SkillsFuture into clearer pathways. One pathway could focus on sector entry and conversion with transparent expectations on likely starting roles, salary ranges and the additional steps needed beyond courses, such as supervised projects, apprenticeship or structured workplace attachments. Another pathway could then focus on progression for those who are already in the sector where SkillsFuture support deeper specialisation and advancement of skills.

This distinction will make the citizen journey clearer and help training translate more reliable into hiring outcomes. So, the key issue here is not willingness of the individual. It is linkage. The linkage between training choices, employer recognition and hiring outcomes. Courses build capability but pathways will build confidence.

The new agency presents an opportunity to close this gap. It can move us towards a system where training is not only supply-driven but aligned to real labour market demand. And it can make pathways clearer at the point where a worker must decide what he must do, he or she must do next.

But integration is not automatic. It takes coordination. It takes timely intelligence. And it takes a clear focus on outcomes. I therefore seek clarification from the Minister on how the new agency will define and track success. For example, will the agency track placement rates within six to 12 months? Job match quality? Wage outcomes? And progression over time, especially for mid-career switches?

Ultimately, the goal must be simple. Every Singaporean who invests his time and effort into upgrading should see a meaningful return, in real employment opportunity.

Mr Speaker, Sir, my second point relates to a life-course approach to workforce development. Many Singaporeans may have to reskill and pivot multiple times in their career. So, workforce support cannot be activated only when one loses a job or signs up for a course. It must be continuous, anticipatory and personalised.

Some workers may also need more flexible routes to sustain household income during these transition phases, including fractional work arrangements or micro-entrepreneurship, where appropriate. But for many, the barrier is not motivation. It is time. It is confidence. And it is navigation.

The formation of this new agency provides an opportunity to move in that direction. With a unified view of skills and employment data, the agency can offer more proactive, tailored and personalised support. It can identify at-risk workers earlier, guide them towards the relevant training and support smoother transitions into new roles.

At the same time, I seek clarification on how the agency intends to balance standardisation and customisation. A centralised and standardised system of course can achieve efficiency. But it must remain responsive to diverse needs. This includes mid-career professionals, lower-wage workers, gig workers, those in emerging sectors and those returning to work after caregiving responsibilities. In other words, Mr Speaker, Sir, the system must be integrated, but it cannot become impersonal.

Mr Speaker, Sir, my third point relates to equity. Singapore has achieved high participation in training programmes. But participation alone does not necessarily translate into equitable outcomes.

We must ensure the benefits of this integrated system are accessible to all, especially those who need it most. This includes lower-income workers, those with lower educational attainment and workers in sectors undergoing disruption. Those in the low buffer households. Equity is not just about access to training. It is also about whether the system is navigable for those with the least time, least confidence and least support.

We should also recognise a practical constraint here. The ability to upgrade while in employment is not available to all. While we have encouraged employers to send workers for training, companies may still prioritise those who are already seen as higher potential. More vulnerable workers can be overlooked or sidelined and this becomes a compounding disadvantage when they eventually face displacement.

Moreover, a number of disadvantaged Singaporeans work beyond their main jobs to supplement household incomes. Others face health and family constraints. These realities limit their capacity to train after hours.

I would therefore ask the Minister how the new agency will ensure that these training pathways remain accessible and relevant to these groups I have mentioned. How will support be sufficiently intensive to those who face greater barriers? And how will outcomes be tracked, not just in aggregate, but across different segments of the workforce? Because if the system is seamless only for those already in advantaged positions, then it truly is not seamless.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the SWDA Bill represents a significant step forward in how Singapore approaches workforce policy. It shifts us from separate interventions towards a more integrated, continuous and responsive system.

But integration cannot be just WSG and SSG shaking hands. Our residents must feel that their hands are held throughout the employment journey. With these comments, Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, I declare my interest as the Executive Director of the Institute for Adult Learning, which receives funding from SSG.

Like many other Members of this House, I welcome the merger of the SSG and WSG agencies to form SWDA. The merits of this merger are clear: it will align training closely with labour market needs, strengthening the nexus between training, employability and employment outcomes. It will also improve the user experience for workers and jobseekers who tap on the two agencies' funding and online resources for their skills and career development. Likewise, enterprises that receive public funding for skills and workforce development will have a more seamless interface with the Government.

With significant workforce disruption on the horizon, the formation of SWDA would strengthen the ecosystem of support for workers to reskill and invest in their career health.

Notwithstanding, there are several points I would like to seek the Minister's clarification on.

Since the launch of the SkillsFuture movement in 2015, the IHLs have pivoted from focusing mainly on PET to also embracing CET, building up their CET course offerings and becoming partners in lifelong learning for their students and graduates.

As the new agency is under MOM, how will it ensure that this momentum is not lost, and that the IHLs will continue to develop as institutions of lifelong learning? In particular, how will MOM coordinate with MOE to provide direction to SWDA on CET?

While Singapore's lifelong learning efforts must support employability, there are other objectives as well. Besides working adults, retirees too must be encouraged to continue learning to keep their minds supple and engaged. Hence, I would like to clarify whether SWDA will actively promote lifelong learning that is not targeted at employment. Will the agency give sufficient attention to the broader aims of lifelong learning as well, particularly given Singapore's growing senior population?

With the formation of SWDA, there is opportunity to merge or streamline the myskillsfuture and mycareersfuture online portals for a more seamless user journey for those looking to reskill for new jobs and careers. I would like to ask what the plans are for the two portals, and in particular, how user experience can be improved.

The Government is investing considerable resources in training and reskilling. This gives substance to the creed that every worker matters, and to the commitment that every worker who wishes to will be supported to reskill for new jobs and careers, even as technology transforms work. At the same time, it is important to ensure that public money is well spent – and this is a point that many in the House have raised. Two questions follow.

First, while the Bill addresses abusive funding arrangements and false or misleading advertisements, including setting out penalties and remedial measures, I would like to ask if the Ministry could elaborate on the steps that will be taken to reduce the risk of fraud or abuse of grants.

Second, and this is critical, could the Ministry share how it will assess the returns on investment in training. For instance, will SWDA monitor how skills acquired through training are deployed at the workplace and assess their impact on employment outcomes? It may be timely for a systematic evaluation of the various SSG and WSG programmes to determine which ought to be scaled up and conversely, which ought to be scaled back or discontinued.

On training grants, funding for WSQ courses is based on the number of trainees who successfully complete and pass the course. While training providers should select students carefully and equip them to succeed, it is to be expected that a small number of trainees will fail to complete or pass the course. It is also important to avoid a situation where because of financial considerations, there is pressure on adult educators to do no more than teach to the test or even pass students who in fact do not make the mark. I would like to ask what steps can be taken to minimise such risks. For instance, could training providers be compensated for trainees who do not manage to pass the course – say up to five or 10% of a class – since the training providers would have incurred costs for these trainees?

In this era of rapid change, training and learning must be nimble and responsive to changing market needs. Training providers may need a "fail fast, learn fast" approach in launching new courses or experimenting with new teaching methods or technologies.

How will SWDA ensure timely course approval, balancing quality considerations with the need for speed in mounting new courses or updating curricula in response to changing technology and job demands?

While a certain risk tolerance is needed for innovation and agility, funding should also reward impact and steer support towards training that proves effective. In this regard, are there plans to review grant structure and KPIs to incentivise desired outcomes from training, beyond training placement and completion rates?

Ultimately, workers must take responsibility in planning for their career and skills development needs. They must invest proactively in career health and not just act when their jobs and livelihoods are at imminent risk. How then can SWDA help to foster agency in individuals to do so? What new approaches, if any, will the agency take in engaging workers?

For learning to bring tangible benefit to enterprises and organisations, it must move beyond episodic programmes and courses to become deeply embedded in organisational strategy and DNA. Data from the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies suggest that for innovation-intensive workplaces, non-formal and informal learning are most prevalent. Formal training must therefore be complemented and integrated with workplace learning.

In this regard, how can SWDA help enterprises become learning organisations where there is strong alignment between business strategy and people strategy, and where learning takes place in the flow of work? Can learning at work be codified and skills recognised to facilitate portability, such as through portfolio-based recognition or skills credentialling? How does SWDA plan to scale impact across the large number of SMEs in different industries that need support?

This House will shortly debate a Motion on an AI Transition with No Jobless Growth. The future of work and the human contribution to work are fundamental to Singapore's social compact. How can Singapore build up expertise in human-centric job redesign so that wherever possible, AI will augment rather than replace human capabilities? How can SWDA help organisations build capability in job redesign and workplace learning? Embedding capabilities within organisations is key, as job redesign and reskilling are not a one-off exercise, but something that enterprises and organisations will have to go through repeatedly as technology continually reshapes work.

Skills-first employment practices will be critical in the new ecosystem of learning and work. This means recognising skills rather than just academic credentials as the primary currency for recruitment, career development and advancement. This provides more mobility for workers, so that their career paths are not constrained by their past educational backgrounds. It also helps employers tap on a wider pool of talent and utilise employee skills more fully. For these reasons, skills-first practices are important for job market efficiency.

I would, therefore, like to ask whether the new agency will continue to champion skills-first employment practices and what more can be done to facilitate and accelerate that adoption of skills-first practices by employers, workers and training providers.

Mr Speaker, the formation of the SWDA will position Singapore strongly as a leader in lifelong learning, career resilience and human-centric job redesign, provided there is sustained investment in research and talent to build expertise in these areas. The Institute for Adult Learning, as the national centre of excellence in adult learning, stands ready to support SWDA in this important work. What is at stake is nothing less than Singapore's work-based social compact. And for this reason, I support the Bill.