By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent

CREATING the best workforce and workplace in the world is the surest path to prosperity in today's volatile world, says parliamentarian and unionist Halimah Yacob.

But Singapore still has some way to go before achieving this, says the veteran MP and deputy secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

The indefatigable champion of workers, who took over as chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Manpower last week, will scrutinise manpower policies and provide input on how they can be tweaked to keep pace with the vagaries of the economic climate. Continuous learning, she advocates, is the best way forward in these tough times.

Pointing out that Singapore had been lacerated by four recessions in a little more than a decade, she notes that guaranteed employment is history, not just here but all over the world.

This being the case, companies need to 'create clear learning paths' to help individual workers develop their careers.

'Lifelong learning is the only way to lifelong employability and income security,' she says.

Going back to the classroom is important not only for those who fuel the 'knowledge economy', but even for rank-and-file blue-collar workers. 'In the old days, good eyesight and nimble fingers were all that were needed to be a factory worker.'

But with labour-intensive jobs moving to cheaper markets, factory workers here need to know how to operate multiple, sophisticated machines worth millions of dollars.

'This requires computer skills. Although it's still a production job, the skill and knowledge needed is much higher.'

The other key ingredient in shaping up the most competitive workforce in the world is more intangible.

'It is the unique value-add that workers provide that has become the main distinguishing factor between the performance of one country or company and another,' says Madam Halimah, a lawyer by training. She joined the labour movement in 1978.

'We need to focus not just on infrastructure and machinery, but on how to help people to create value. We need to make the jump from being able to do a job to finding creative solutions to problems - not just old solutions, but new and innovative ones.'

At Panasonic Refrigeration Devices Singapore, a factory she visited last week, suggestions from factory workers helped save the company precious dollars.

The company ended up replacing the timber boxes used to pack refrigerator parts with cheaper and lighter cardboard cartons, enabling workers to pack them faster.

While such sparks are heartening, they are still far from the norm.

Seeds of creativity need to be sown not at workplaces, but much earlier - at school and university, says the mother of five children aged between 18 and 27.

'We need to look hard at our education system and see how best to produce workers who don't just work hard but know how to think out of the box and ask questions.'

Cutting costs and saving jobs

BUT her immediate priority is to help companies cut costs and save jobs.

Last quarter, 12,600 people here lost their jobs as retrenchments scaled a 10-year peak. Two schemes the Government launched to help workers cope - Spur and Jobs Credit - have helped stanch the bleed.

Dismissing criticism that such moves help businesses more than workers, she says that both programmes are a 'win-win' formula that helped both groups.

Take the case of Japanese disk drive manufacturer Murata Electronics, the first company to make use of Spur, under which the Government pays up to 90 per cent of course fees for worker training.

At the time, Murata's orders had plunged to a new low. By sending its workers for training under Spur, the company saved $500,000 and was able to reduce retrenchments. Now its workers are reskilled and orders are finally looking up.

But her work as the chief purveyor of manpower policies will be far from over when Singapore pulls out of the recession. Her long-term wish list is extensive, and high on the list is improving the lot of low-skilled, female and foreign workers.

First, she wants to bridge the rich-poor income divide.

'After every recession, there is a decline in level of wages as pay cuts may not be restored,' she says.

This may be a global phenomenon, but one that Singapore cannot take lightly, as it already has a relatively high Gini coefficient at 0.48, which is comparable to countries like Mexico (0.47) and Uganda (0.43). This coefficient is the international benchmark for measuring income inequalities between the richest and poorest in a country.

If you factor in 'social transfers' or the handouts the Government gives to the poor - such as the Workfare Income Supplement - the coefficient falls slightly to 0.46.

'But long term, we need to worry about this and make sure that social cohesion is not affected.'

With Singapore's focus on ensuring that all children get a proper education - an additional $67.5 million was poured in just this past weekend towards this goal - she believes that eventually a better-educated population will narrow the rich-poor divide.

'But it's today's low-wage workers that worry me. Some who are just in their 40s may have another 20 years of working life left.'

She hopes the Government will consider raising from $1,500 to $1,800 the income ceiling of the Workfare Income Supplement, a government payout that is given to help shore up the wages of older workers.

Another imperative: Creating 'good quality' jobs that pay well. Some of this is already happening.

Job re-creation schemes that aim to turn low-paying jobs into better-paying ones are underway, including in the security industry.

Five years ago, security guards earned an average of $800, a little more than half the $1,500 they do today.

The value-add? They need to be trained and now use sophisticated surveillance equipment.

Helping more women go back to work is another key priority.

'Women have less CPF savings, Medisave and retirement income,' she says.

Yet, on average they suffer 11 years of disability, compared to just eight years for men, towards the end of their lives.

'They also need a lot more treatment and incur higher health-care costs.'

Singapore's labour force participation rate for women - at around 55 per cent last June - is abysmally low, compared to Scandinavian countries such as Sweden (81 per cent) and Norway (80 per cent).

Getting more companies to embrace flexi-work options is one way of ensuring that women, often bogged down with care-giving, get an opportunity to earn an income.

Companies can also make use of the Government's FlexiWork Fund to help defray the costs of introducing flexible work arrangements such as staggered hours or shorter work weeks.

Companies such as SingPost have already come up with innovative ways of employing housewives.

The company makes use of housewives to deliver letters in Housing Board estates during their free time.

'The work is organised around the women rather than the other way around,' she notes. 'We need more of such arrangements.'

Respect in the workplace

FINALLY, she hopes companies here will accord equal respect to both local and foreign workers.

'A nurturing workplace is one that empowers workers, ensures their safety - and above all - obeys the laws of the land. Judging by the number of instances of employers not complying with our laws - especially with regard to foreign workers - we have some distance to go.'

Recent cases of workers coming here on legal work permits after paying hefty fees to agents, but being repatriated after getting no work, are a 'shame' that she fears could ultimately reap a grim harvest for Singapore.

While governments in the origin countries need to police their own rogue agents, she says better enforcement of laws here is also necessary.

It was reported recently that the authorities in China's Fujian province were discouraging their workers from coming to Singapore.

'If more areas follow suit, this could cost Singapore dearly,' she says. 'Saving these workers from the terrible hardship they face is ultimately in Singapore's best interests.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.