TWO years ago, Madam Irene Chong was working the graveyard shift testing integrated circuit (IC) chips at semiconductor company STMicroelectronics.
She made $700 a month.
Today, the 54-year-old single woman remains at the company but holds a high-skilled job and earns nearly twice her previous salary. Her new job since last year: implanting IC chips onto silicon wafers.
Madam Chong, who lives with her brother's family in a five-room flat in Toa Payoh, is one of 300 back-end staff who STMicroelectronics successfully redeployed to work at its high-tech wafer fabrication plant in the past two years.
In 2006, the company began moving assembly and testing work to countries such as China and Malaysia where manpower was cheaper.
But instead of retrenching workers here, it partnered unions to train them for new jobs in the wafer fabrication plant, which was expanding and needed more workers.
'When we were first told we would be working in the wafer fabrication plant, I was quite scared as it seemed like a very complicated job,' said Madam Chong, who has to go through an 'air shower' to disinfect herself before donning a jumpsuit when she reports for work.
'But the company was very patient, and we had trainers who spent a lot of time going through all the technical aspects of the job. That helped make the switch a lot easier for us.'
STMicroelectronics' efforts were cited by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his May Day Rally speech. He praised the company for taking proactive steps to help low-wage workers affected by global competition take on new jobs.
National Trades Union Congress deputy secretary-general Halimah Yacob said reskilling workers and helping them into new jobs are all the more important, given that more retrenchments are expected in the electronics industry.
More than 900 workers from the industry have been given the pink slip in the first quarter of this year in the light of an uncertain global economy, she said.
'A few hundred more' retrenchments are expected in the second quarter, she told The Straits Times.
'Our message to companies is: Don't wait until the retrenchments come,' said Madam Halimah, who is executive secretary of the United Workers of Electronic and Electrical Industries.
She said companies can, for example, work with unions to train production operators to pick up troubleshooting skills, so that they can become more valuable workers.
To equip workers like Madam Chong for high-skill jobs in the wafer fabrication plant, STMicroelectronics hot-housed them in a two-day technical 'boot camp' and signed them up for numeracy and literacy courses.
The company also made sure trainers were attached to each redeployed staff member during a two-week orientation period to assuage their possible fears and to highlight their job concerns to management.
Said Ms Lim Jit Lee, the company's director for human resources (wafer fabrication): 'Many are concerned that at their age, they will be unable to learn a new skill or work in a demanding environment like the wafer fabrication plant.
'The important thing is to eliminate their fears and uncertainties by counselling and helping them change their mindsets about taking on a new job.'
Madam Chong, who was retrenched 17 years ago when she worked in another electronics factory, is heartened by the opportunity to transit to a new career.
'I'm very happy because at least now I can continue to see my friends at work. It's just a matter of getting used to the job,' she said.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 20, 2008
