Remarks by Minister Josephine Teo at the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce (SERT) Press Conference

Thank you very much, DPM Gan. I would also like to thank the media for joining us for this update.

At the last press conference, I had talked about my workstream, which is on sensemaking and communications, our primary objective being to ensure that there is trusted and reliable three-way communications between the Government, businesses, as well as workers.

For today’s update, I will cover what has been done and what we have heard.

In terms of what has been done, since April, SERT has engaged very widely – the number of touch-points have exceeded 3,000. This would include engagement with business leaders, union leaders, as well as with the members of the workforce, including those in the graduating cohorts.

1. These engagements have been very useful, because SERT does not want to rely only on what economic indicators are telling us.

2. We accept that economic indicators are very valuable, but we also want to have timely and reliable feedback and engagements with the business- and working communities. These are very useful ways for us to get a timely sense of what is going on. They also help us to contextualise what we are seeing through numbers.

3. For example, what DPM Gan mentioned about the front-loading that has held up the economic indicators. That tells us that in the following quarters, once the effects of front-loading wash out, then the real impact may be felt more viscerally.

Let me turn now to what we have heard so far, and I will break it into two broad buckets – what we have heard from businesses, as well as what we have heard from the workforce.

In terms of what businesses are telling us, I should say that there are broadly three buckets of responses.

1. The first type of response would be to continue monitoring the situation. In other words, these businesses are not taking specific actions just yet, beyond linking up with industry counterparts, suppliers and with their customers to just get a better sense of what’s going on. This continuous monitoring is one type of response.

2. The second type of response goes much further. There are already companies that have decided that it is probably better for them to defer or hold back their major investment decisions, so that is in a sense, the other end of the spectrum.

3. There is a third type of response amongst businesses, which is to take out their plans right now and review them. When businesses talk about “review”, they are looking at the product mix - what they are offering to their customers – as well as where they are producing or making these kinds of products and services available. They are asking themselves the questions – is this where we ought to continue operating? Or should we be thinking about adaptation and going elsewhere?

I should also say that each company’s response will be quite varied. It can be a combination of these types of responses, and the weights will obviously have to depend on how directly and immediately impacted these companies are.

Suffice to say that companies in the outward-oriented sectors, they feel the impact much more imminently, and their plans, therefore will be much more likely to have to be adjusted sooner rather than later.

That is the feedback on the business sector. We continue to pay very close attention to what they are telling us and Siong Seng will be able to share more on the specifics, for example, the things that they are paying closer attention to in terms of how they get their goods into the markets that they currently serve.

Let me turn now to talk about the responses from workers. On this, the interaction with the union leaders have been most helpful. Because of the long-standing relationships that we have had with the unions, and the unions with their own employers and members, there is a strong sense and recognition that the situation is very fluid, and it is the uncertainty that is creating certain risk factors where the workforce is concerned.

If you look at the employment and the unemployment numbers, they have been very well maintained – there has been no major impact on those fronts.

But because of uncertainty, there is an understanding that for now, there may be a certain conservatism when companies think about hiring, and they are not likely to make major moves.

1. What that means is that under current context, a certain flexible attitude on the part of job seekers - whether they are existing members of the workforce or fresh graduates just coming into the workforce - is an important attribute to have.

We understand the anxiety. We understand that there will always, in such situations, be a concern whether the outlook will worsen.

But there is also the recognition that there are still good job opportunities available, perhaps in areas that people may not have considered so much before. Chee Meng will be able to share more together with See Leng. 

All in all, I should say that the overall sense that we are getting from the engagements with both businesses and workers is that there is a high level of recognition that things could continue to downtrend.

Therefore, there is also the recognition that the best thing we can do for ourselves is to be very prepared, whether in terms of adjusting our business plans or in terms of thinking how to expand opportunities, job-wise.

I will pause right there and let the other SERT members continue. Thank you.