SINGAPORE: At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday (Jan 21), President Tharman Shanmugaratnam emphasised the opportunity for creating new jobs amid the current global situation.
Jobs have long been a concern for the President, both on a local and international level. In 2020, he said, “Everywhere we look around the world, jobs will be the central challenge of the future.”
And at last year’s forum in Davos, he warned of an impending job crisis around the globe, as there will be 1.2 billion workers entering the workforce in the next 10 years who will compete for just 400 million jobs. This “unprecedented” situation would mean that 800 million people would either enter the informal economy, be underemployed, or simply remain unemployed, he said, adding that this would not only affect people on a personal level but could contribute to a type of global disorder.
Mr Tharman is the co-chairman of the World Bank Group’s High-Level Advisory Council on Jobs. This time around, he spoke on opportunities for job creation, especially in light of transitioning to more green technologies. Resource-rich Africa and South Asia may be sites for worldwide energy production, he added.
“This is a real opportunity that didn’t exist at the time that East Asia took off – the opportunity of creating jobs; unskilled, semi-skilled, and high-skilled through the renewable transition,” he said.
Mr Tharman spoke on the possibility of moving production to other developing countries while China seeks to manage over-manufacturing issues.
Building a decent world order
Earlier that day, Mr Tharman had been one of the panellists in a discussion on who brokers trust on a global level, and did not mince words on recent developments.
He said that the world has become a multi-polar one, and issued a warning against accepting the erosion of norms and the trust built over the past eight decades. However, he added, “It will be tempting to think that things have to get worse before they can get better before we can reboot. But unfortunately, the danger with that is that things may not just get worse, but you might have a self-reinforcing decline into disorder.”
He said that the world must “bend the trajectory” and not wait until things get worse, hoping that situations will improve. This needs to start at a very basic level, he said, and he again touched on jobs.
“Start with where people are. Start with their hopes and their fears. What most people want is a secure job, a good job, and one where they have the dignity of knowing that they’re contributing,” the President said.
“It is significant that people who trust each other at home in their own countries have greater interest and faith in cooperation internationally. If you want to build a decent world order, it has to start at home.” /TISG
