As the Singapore economy continues to power ahead, the private sector is providing training for more staff, according to key findings from the 2006 Survey on Employer Supported Training.

72 per cent of private sector establishments provided structured training to their employees in 2006, unchanged from the previous year's high.

The survey by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) covered 2,774 private sector organisations with at least 25 workers. Together, these firms employed some 764,669 employees.

Key findings

Other key findings include the following:

• 96 per cent of establishments with 250 or more employees sent their staff for training, compared with 86 per cent for those with 100-249 employees and 66 per cent for those employing 25-99 employees.
• Industries with the most employers sending their staff for training are professional services (81 per cent), financial services (85 per cent), hotels (86 per cent) and construction (91 per cent). Firms in the construction industry have to send their foreign workers for mandatory safety orientation courses.
• Industries with the least employers sending their staff for training are restaurants (39 per cent) and retail trade (50 per cent). These industries have many temporary or part-time workers who are trained informally on-the-job.
• 62 per cent who are professionals, managers, executives and technicians were sent for training, compared to 57 per cent sent from production and related occupations. For those working in clerical, sales and service jobs, 55 per cent were given structured training.

Employers claim benefits from staff training

Employers surveyed said that training had a positive impact on worker productivity (88 per cent), quality of their products and services (85 per cent), and customer satisfaction (78 per cent).

Spending per employee rose for the third straight year to $563. This has resulted in training expenditure taking a higher percentage of the employee payroll, up from 1.3 per cent in 2005 to 1.4 per cent in 2006.

For more information, please visit the Ministry of Manpower's website.