The Infocomm Media Development Authority (“IMDA”) has partnered with Singapore’s Mobile Network Operators (“MNOs”) to hire and reskill 1,000 professionals to support Singapore’s 5G rollout. Of these, 30% are new roles, while the remaining are telecom professionals who will be upskilled in the areas of 5G network, cybersecurity and solution engineering to futureproof their jobs.
The demand for 5G professionals is expected to grow as Singapore’s 5G rollout gathers momentum and more enterprises participate in the ecosystem.
Mr Lew Chuen Hong, Chief Executive, IMDA, said, “Talent development is the next critical phase of our investment in 5G. This effort extends Singapore’s momentum in 5G following our investment in building infrastructure capabilities. We have worked with the local MNOs to unlock the potential of 5G for these 1,000 professionals and will continue to do so to create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans. At the same time, to ensure we have a strong pipeline of 5G talent who are skilled and ready, IMDA is leading efforts to appoint credible training partners to develop 5G skills across the ecosystem. The first wave of training will begin at the end of 2020 with the MNOs’ 5G professionals.”
Under the TechSkills Accelerator initiative, IMDA has set up 5G Workforce Transformation Committees (“WTCs”) with the MNOs to oversee the planning and development of their 5G workforce capabilities. In addition, IMDA will be appointing a consortium comprising National University of Singapore (“NUS”) and Singapore Polytechnic (“SP”) as the 5G and Telecoms Programme Manager (“PM”).
They will be a strategic partner to aggregate hiring and training requirements from the WTCs and the wider 5G ecosystem players, so as to co-develop quality training to meet demand, and enable Singaporeans to take on 5G jobs. The plan is to work with the industry and equip a total of 5,000 professionals over the next 3 years to develop a strong, 5G skilled workforce.