Keynote Address by Senior Minister of State , Ministry of Transport & Deputy Secretary-General, National Trades Union Congress Mr Chee Hong Tat at OneAviation Careers

Mr Edmund Cheng, Chairman, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

1.     I am very happy to join you today at OneAviation Careers – an aviation sector-wide career and recruitment fair organised by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) in partnership with Workforce Singapore (WSG), National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i).

2.     This aviation sector-wide career event comes after a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are recovering strongly and the aviation sector needs more workers to support its growth. You can see this from this very overwhelming participation by aviation companies, as well as the large number and range of jobs on offer. More importantly, is seeing so many people at this recruitment event, especially our students. Very happy to see you all here.

3.     The strong turn-out, especially from our young people, sends a clear and powerful signal. Singapore Aviation will soar once again, connecting people and businesses from around the world, and remain a source of pride for Singapore and Singaporeans.  

Working together as OneAviation through the pandemic

4.     The aviation sector is an essential pillar of Singapore’s economy. Pre-COVID, the Changi air hub and its adjacent industries contributed over 5% of Singapore’s GDP and supported almost 200,000 jobs across the economy.

5.     As a small open economy, Singapore needs to be connected to the world to survive and to thrive. And to maintain our competitiveness as a business hub. This is crucial, this is a matter of life and death – for our economy, for our jobs, for our workers for our people.  

6.     Aviation also connects families, loved ones and friends across borders. It also allows us to bring in critical supplies including food and medical items – our vaccines for example, a lot of them is from our position as an aviation hub, from air cargo. This is a key import and export channel for our vibrant manufacturing sector.

7.     Pre-COVID, the sector was thriving. We have a lot of plans to grow this further, because it provided quality jobs and good career prospects for our workers. Changi Airport was one of the busiest airports for international traffic, serving more than 68 million passengers in 2019, supported by a direct aviation workforce of over 35,000. 

8.     The pandemic was a significant disruption to global aviation. We went through difficult times together. At the height of the pandemic, passenger traffic at Changi Airport fell to 0.5% of pre-COVID levels. Let me say that again – fell to 0.5% of pre-COVID levels - not 50% and not even 5%, but 0.5%, that was how bad it was! 

9.     Companies fought hard to keep jobs and difficult decisions had to be made – many workers were furloughed or re-deployed; many livelihoods were adversely affected.

10.    In Singapore, our tripartite partners took quick and decisive action to support our companies and protect our workers. The Government stepped in with significant assistance, including wage and enhanced training support to protect jobs, provide funding support for public health safeguards, and continued to invest in technology and innovation efforts to cope with the pandemic and build stronger capabilities in preparation for the recovery. Even during the darkest period of the pandemic. We kept hope alive by providing assistance, protecting workers,  setting our sights on when spring will come after the long winter.

11.    Our unions and union leaders played critical roles to look after workers. NTUC worked with employers to facilitate redeployment and placements, and accelerate training and workforce transformation through Company Training Committee (CTCs), which are collaboration platforms between management and unions to enhance productivity and skills-upgrading of workers.

12.    The CAAS and NTUC also collaborated on the Singapore OneAviation Reskilling grant, or SOAR, to support over 11,000 worker-initiated training places via the CTCs.  These initiatives have made a positive impact on our companies and our workers. 

13.    Our strong tripartite partnership is one key reason why Singapore Aviation has been able to successfully ramp up to support air traffic recovery over the past few months.

14.    Let me share some examples with all of you to illustrate this important point. I think many of us know that during the pandemic, many of our cabin crew were redeployed to support other COVID-19 related efforts, including serving in hospitals and nursing homes.

a.     Mr Andrew Quek is a Leading Steward with SIA, tapped on his 26 years of expertise at providing care and world-class service when he was redeployed as a Care Ambassador at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for 20 months.

b.     During that time, he attended to patients who required routine medical care, under the supervision of the hospital’s nursing staff.

c.     Andrew has since returned to active flying duty. He is also here with us today. May I invite him to stand up, and let us thank him for his service to our patients and his support for our sisters and brothers in the healthcare sector.

15.    Others took the time to pick up new skills so they could add value in their roles and be cross deployed across different functions.

a.     Pre-COVID, SATS Passenger Services staff Mr Mohamad Shaiful Bin Senin led a team of passenger service agents at the SilverKris Lounge. During the pandemic, he underwent WSG’s Career Conversion Programme for Air Transport Coordinators, and picked up new skills including making effective announcements and systems training to process passengers more efficiently.

b.     Back at the SilverKris Lounge, Mr Shaiful is now able to provide a more holistic suite of passenger services and can also be cross-deployed to handle passengers at gates and check-in counters. So, he is now able to do different roles because of his training.

c.     Through reskilling or upskilling, many aviation workers like Mr Shaiful have worked hard to upgrade their skills to support the sector’s recovery. Mr Shaiful is also here with us today. May I also invite him to stand. We salute you for your tenacity and passion for aviation.

16.    Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, I would now like to invite representatives from the government, employers and unions to join me in thanking all our workers in the aviation sector.

17.    Thank you for your trust and confidence, for your resilience and determination, and for your unwavering commitment to Singapore Aviation.

18.    You are the wind beneath the wings of our aviation hub, and you are the reason why Singapore Aviation will bounce back and soar high once again.     

19.    Indeed, our ability to work together as one coordinated team, a tightly knit eco-system, is what distinguishes the Singapore air hub from other competitors in the world.

20.    This is actually our secret sauce - tripartism. I would say it is an open secret sauce – we share and talk about it openly, but it remains our secret ingredient to give Singapore that competitive edge.  This is because knowing about the importance of tripartism is not enough – it is necessary but insufficient on its own. 

21.    The key is in the implementation and how we translate the trust and partnerships into concrete actions and positive outcomes, like what we have done here in Singapore. 

22.    In March this year, the CAAS set up the Singapore Aviation Sector Tripartite Committee comprising the relevant government agencies, unions and companies in the sector to work on rebuilding the Singapore air hub. We also want to look at other important issues like sustainability and industry transformation. It is chaired by Mr Han Kok Juan, CAAS Director-General. It provides a platform for all to forward plan, identify issues and coordinate action.

23.    Today’s OneAviation Careers is an outcome of discussions by this Tripartite Committee. So this is an important example of tripartite in action. The objectives of this fair are three-fold:

a.     first, to share future plans and convey optimism in a sector that has been badly battered by COVID-19 but is now recovering strongly;

b.     second, to reaffirm the sector’s commitment to growing a strong Singaporean core as we rebuild our air hub; and

c.     third, to showcase and profile the wide-ranging careers the sector has to offer, including in areas such as operations, service and engineering and also in new areas like technology and sustainability. So, it is actually a very wide range, of interesting jobs, good careers. For the young ones here, I hope to take the opportunity to find out more about these jobs. If you have any questions about what are some of the career possibilities, skill requirements, you can talk to the representatives at the booths, whether it is the NTUC booths or company booths.

24.    It is hence most fitting that the tripartite partners have decided to name this event “OneAviation Careers”. We recognise that when we work together as one, the aviation community will overcome challenges and differentiate ourselves from the competition.

25.    And it will be the OneAviation community with its resilient spirit and resourceful people, which will allow Singapore Aviation to build back better and emerge stronger.

Ramping up to capture the opportunities ahead

26.    We are currently near 50% of pre-COVID passenger volumes, having arrived at this milestone much earlier than originally projected. And as Minister Iswaran shared earlier at Davos earlier this week, we have to ensure that the sector has the manpower it needs to keep pace with the recovery of air travel and tourism.

27.    As we journey towards full recovery and future growth, the sector needs to strengthen its ranks, bring in more talent, energy and passion to power it forward. As a sector, we recognise this need and have been intensifying our hiring, not just by facilitating the return of workers who had previously left the sector during the pandemic, but we are also taking steps to promote attractive and quality jobs to fresh graduates and also to mid-career job seekers.

28.    These include emerging roles in sustainability and technology. Supported by the Company Training Committees, WSG and SkillsFuture Singapore, companies are also proactively upskilling and multi-skilling their workers to be ready for the future.

29.    Over the next two days, over 20 aviation employers will be interviewing job seekers on-site, to fill close to 2,000 vacancies immediately. So if you are interested to sign up, talk to them – they have 2,000 vacancies to fill immediately. The jobs available are wide-ranging, from careers in airport retail, services and operations, to aviation policy, aerospace engineering and IT.

30.    This is the first of many more sector-wide efforts to help companies attract and bring back workers. With these recruitment efforts, we anticipate that the sector could restore close to 85-90% of its pre-COVID workforce by end of the year.

31.    As a next step, CAAS, NTUC, e2i and other partner agencies including WSG, SSG and other key aviation employers are also working together to launch a OneAviation Careers Hub web portal.

32.    Job seekers can already find the vacancies available in the aviation sector on the CAAS OneAviation Careers webpage. So this new web portal will serve as a one-stop platform for end-to-end job facilitation, career and training advisory and counselling, as well as recruitment services.

33.    You can visit the portal to understand the career opportunities and Career Conversion Programmes available across the sector, and to identify suitable training courses to equip yourselves with the relevant skills and competencies. CAAS and NTUC target to launch the portal in 3^rd quarter this year.

34.    Please allow me to say a few lines in Mandarin before I conclude.

35.    各位女士先生们，大家下午好。今天的“‘航空一心’职业展”是劳资政委员会的成果之一。我们意识到，只要我们万众一心，齐心合力，新加坡航空业一定能克服挑战，脱颖而出。  

36.    我想邀请雇主，工会和政府的代表和我一起，以热烈的掌声，向航空领域的工友们致谢。谢谢大家，也谢谢我们的员工。

37.    虽然航空业在疫情期间深受打击，许多工友们继续支持新加坡航空业，维持劳资政三方的互信以及坚韧不拔的精神。

38.    如果我用福建话说，这个叫“打不死”。也可以说是“打死都不跑”。这就是我们不屈不挠的奋斗精神。

39.    这也是为什么我对新加坡航空业的复苏充满信心，我们的企业和员工绝对能够再次翱翔！

Conclusion

40.    Let me conclude in English. Ladies and gentlemen, today’s event is testament to our positive aviation recovery.  I am confident the pace of recovery and growth will continue to strengthen.

41.    Looking forward, I am confident and optimistic that the path ahead for the Changi air hub and Singapore Aviation will be a bright one as our foundations are strong and deep, including our tripartite partnership, our capabilities, and our willingness to push the boundaries.

42. I am also happy to see many students here today, including those who are taking aviation and air transport courses in our institutes of higher learning. And we also have younger students who are taking aviation-related CCAs in our secondary schools.

43.    I would like to urge our youths, and our workers who are evaluating their career options, to consider joining the aviation industry and be a part of the generation that will rebuild and restore Singapore’s air hub and bring it to greater heights.

44.    Your efforts now will set the trajectory for our air hub for the coming decade and beyond. So join us and together, Singapore Aviation will soar again.

45.    Thank you.