Building a future-ready and digitally skilled workforce in Singapore

“A recent study by AlphaBeta, Unlocking APAC’s Digital Potential, revealed that Singapore will need 1.2 million additional digital workers[1] by 2025, a 55% increase from today’s levels,” said Tan Lee Chew, ASEAN Managing Director, Public Sector, AWS. “As the technology sector works at a fast clip to support economic recovery and bring on new innovations in Singapore, it is important we ensure we have the right digitally skilled workforce in place to further boost the local industry.”

According to AlphaBeta, the 1.2 million additional digital workers in Singapore by 2025 includes today’s non-digital workers who will need to upskill, students who will enter the workforce, and currently unemployed or out-of-workforce individuals who need to learn basic digital skills to access job opportunities. Furthermore, 51% of Singapore’s current digital workers who are not applying cloud computing skills today believe it will be a requirement to perform their jobs by 2025.

“COVID-19 has created a wave of disruption and digitalization. To get back on track and capture new growth, Singapore has to invest in emerging areas such as cloud computing, AI, and software engineering. Here we turn to trusted partners such as AWS. Cloud Ready SG is a wonderful example of how leading companies and the government are working together to train Singaporeans for the jobs and skills of the future,” said Ang Chin Tah, Senior Vice President, Digital Industry Singapore.

In collaboration with the Singapore Government, AWS has developed a national workforce development program called Cloud Ready SG with AWS - a holistic digital and cloud technology skilling program curated for Singaporeans across segments. From new graduates and early career workers, to mid-career professionals, AWS is working to drive inclusive growth in training the current and future workforce in Singapore.

This program includes:

• AWS Infrastructure and Data Center Training Program: AWS provides a 3 – 12 month program offering skills training, on-the-job traineeship, and mentorship to new recruits under the Infrastructure & Data Centre training and job placement program. With a focus on hiring mid-career candidates seeking to switch industries, the program has seen candidates transition successfully from industries such as healthcare, other traditional IT sectors, aviation and hospitality.
  
• Free online training: Singaporeans can access more than 500 free, on-demand online AWS courses, with many courses available in multiple languages, to build AWS Cloud skills at their convenience. AWS also offers interactive labs, and virtual day-long training sessions, as well as job-based learning paths and numerous free instructor-led webinars. We are regularly adding new training courses. For example, one of our newest courses, Machine Learning Essentials for Business and Technical Decision Makers, empower leaders with foundational ML knowledge.
  
• Classroom training courses for Singapore’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) workforce: AWS has rolled out 6 intermediate and advanced cloud training courses on CITREP+ (a Government platform) taught by local AWS Training partners, such as Bespoke and Trainocate. These include: Architecting on AWS, Advanced Architecting on AWS, Developing on AWS, Systems Operations on AWS, DevOps Engineering on AWS, and Security Engineering on AWS. Each course is also bundled with a voucher to take an AWS Certification exam to validate cloud expertise. 
  
• Professional competencies for the financial industry: AWS worked with The Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) in Singapore, to help develop the professional competencies of the financial industry. AWS offers a 4-day course, Machine Learning Pipeline on AWS, to create awareness of the innovation potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in the financial sector. This course is offered via our AWS Training Partner, NTUC LearningHub.
  
• AWS Educate Virtual Job Fairs: To facilitate job placements with the AWS Partner Network (APN) companies, AWS organizes virtual job fairs in partnership with the Employment and Employability Institute (E2i). Participants are offered internship and job opportunities with AWS Partner Network companies.
  
• Next Gen Programs for AWS hires: AWS also offers a six-month internship program for students via the Next Gen Internship program and a 12-month graduate program called Next Gen Graduate. These programs have been designed to provide candidates deep learning and insights into the AWS business and Amazonian work culture.

In Singapore, AWS is the first cloud service provider to be part of the Applied Learning Programs (ALP), working closely with schools to develop technical literacy in coding and cloud computing. The ALP is part of the Ministry of Education (MOE)’s continuing efforts to develop future generations of lifelong learners. Students are taught how to use AWS services and Python programming. AWS’s training content includes AI/ML, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), and Robotics. This program is now available to all secondary schools.

AWS also announced that six institutes of higher learning in Singapore will bring AWS Cloud courses and learning resources into their diploma programs. By collaborating with AWS education programs, these institutions are developing the next generation of cloud professionals. The courses, which include the fundamentals of cloud computing, application development, and cloud security, are available now as part of the institutions’ diploma and short course programs.

[1] Digital workers are defined as individuals who have the ability to apply digital technologies on work-related tasks.