Digital Disruption: How Emerging Key Industries Embrace Tech

To the world, COVID-19 is an unprecedented pandemic. To economic experts, COVID-19 is also a catalyst of change, accelerating certain trends unfolding in the economy, and chief among them is technology. 

While many may be concerned about a looming recession, we are also witnessing an extensive series of technological innovation and breakthroughs. It is happening simultaneously across multiple industries like Healthcare and Community Care, Logistics (eCommerce), Wholesale Trade, ICT and Media, Construction, Finance and Generic Manufacturing.

Biomedical Sector embraces Technology

In the midst of our frantic race to save and protect lives during this pandemic, the biomedical sector is Singapore's only trade-related industry to register growth in March 2020 amidst the shrinkage of global export demands.

Given the surge of demand for healthcare during Covid-19, we witness the paramount need for the industry to improve efficiency. In order to free up our medical personnel for more vital roles, mobile disinfection robots, equipped with ultraviolet ray "swords", will soon be used to eliminate viruses from surfaces. 

Administrative work, such as staffing and scheduling patients’ appointments, is being replaced by AI (Artificial Intelligence), giving Singapore the reputation of ranking 3rd in a survey on the use of AI in healthcare.

Construction Sector and Technology
 

While our healthcare sector is well-equipped for a crisis like Covid-19, we witnessed our Construction industry coming to a grinding halt, following the alarming increase of confirmed Covid-19 cases in numerous dormitories where most construction workers reside. 

As the industry is highly dependent on the manual labour of these foreign workers living in these dormitories, all construction work was temporarily suspended to curb the spread of the virus. Consequently, the Construction sector is expected to contract sharply by 10.3 per cent this year, making Singapore the worst-hit market in the Asia-Pacific region.

A labour-intensive industry, like Construction, urgently requires transformation, for automation to substitute bulk of the heavy lifting, and not just that, for more skilled labour to be hired, to significantly ramp up productivity. With more than 900 available construction-related courses to be taken, like the New Developments In Construction Methods And Materials Course, the digitalisation of this industry is no longer a distant reality. 

How should we prepare ourselves for this Digital Disruption?
 

Our diligent workforce is the pride of our economy where employees typically work long hours, but times have changed. Simply working hard and long no longer fits the bill. We need a new strategy, we need new knowledge and skills to complement (not replace) whatever existing expertise and experience we possess, and that is, we need to gain technological aptitude, and emerge stronger together with these industries.

You can also sign up for a one-to-one consultation for advice on your training needs and sectoral webinars to learn more about emerging trends and jobs and skills that are in demand. Other tools that might be useful for your journey includes the Skills Passport to collate your credentials, Digital Skills Check to assess your tech-savviness, as well as Online Assessment Tools to help suggest possible careers based on your career interests, skills confidence and work values.

Once you have done that, scoot over to check out these professionally-curated courses, such as Artificial Intelligence, that can be easily subsidised with your SkillsFuture Credit, and start marching to the beat of the new digital norm.