Monday, February 8, 2016

Front page: IT talent shortage

Must be surprising to most ST readers that a story like this makes the front page today. This is actually a very serious matter.

My perspective is that things are so fast now that you cannot plan and train the people you need. This is a huge problem as it means we will have to rely on the global pool of human resource.

It would be wonderful if planners could anticipate or manpower needs but we have never really succeeded here and looks like it has not gotten better. Therefore the brutal but realistic approach is talent mobility except that I don't think tiny Singapore can survive this because we would have too many foreigners here and at the same time many of us would be living and working elsewhere.

Why are we still using decades old methods to determine manpower needs? This is not serving us well at all. What is the use of being top ranked in education metrics when we are not meeting such basic needs? But are we prepared to be bold and revolutionary when present approaches are not working well.


Inside the ST today is another manpower story. This one is about not having enough doctors and bringing locals who had gone overseas to obtain their medical qualifications.

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