April 3, 2023

The Symposium on In-Work Poverty and the Challenges of Getting By Among the Young was held on 29 March 2023, hosted by the NUS Social Service Research Centre (SSR). ‘Less-Educated Young Workers in Lower-Wage Jobs Face Job Mobility and Training Challenges: NUS Study’ (Straits Times, March 2023) covers some of the research results relating to less-educated young workers in lower-wage jobs presented at this symposium.

Associate Professor Irene Ng (NUS Social Work & SSR), reporting on a study she led with the SSR, finds that workers in non-professional, managerial, executive, and technical (non-PMET) jobs tend to participate less in upskilling programmes. But those who do take part in these training programmes by and large reap greater wage benefits. Workers in this category also often rely more on government funding to attend upskilling and training programmes. A/P Ng argues that these findings show that it is worthwhile to target policy efforts to encourage young lower-income workers to attend training programmes.

Associate Professor Vincent Chua (NUS Sociology and Anthropology), an expert on social capital, remarks that there are disparities in the benefits which PMET and non-PMET workers reap from their social networks. Although both categories of workers can secure jobs through their social connections, the percentage increase in wages (as compared to their first job) is higher for PMET workers who secure jobs in this way.

A/P Chua attributes this to how wage structures differ across jobs in PMET and non-PMET categories. He remarks that non-PMET work generally offers limited wage progression prospects. To counteract this, he suggests that the Progressive Wage Model be expanded to include all non-PMET jobs in the future so that all non-PMET workers can have opportunities to climb the wage ladder.

These findings are important in informing policy interventions targeting inequality in Singapore, with a focus on the young working poor. A/P Ng says that policies for this group of people must be targeted and differentiated because the young working poor face challenges in mobility and mental health that are distinct from their cohort-mates in higher socio-economic classes. She warns that should Singapore fail to attend to its young working poor, they might become the “future poor old” who require greater government assistance and support.

Read the article here: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/lower-wage-young-workers-face-challenges-with-job-mobility-and-training-nus-study

Find out more about the symposium here: https://fass.nus.edu.sg/ssr/events/symposium-in-work-poverty/