Singaporean mobile operators partnered with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to set a programme to recruit and train telecoms professionals to support the country’s 5G rollouts.
IMDA said 30 per cent of 1,000 targeted positions will be new roles.
In a statement, IMDA chief executive, Lew Chuen Hong said talent development is the next critical phase of the country’s investment in 5G. To ensure Singapore has a strong pipeline of 5G talent, he said the agency is spearheading efforts to appoint training partners to develop 5G skills across the ecosystem. The first wave of training will begin at the end of the year.
Under the TechSkills Accelerator initiative, it set up committees with the operators to oversee the planning and development of their 5G workforce capabilities.
In addition, National University of Singapore and Singapore Polytechnic will coordinate the hiring and training requirements across the 5G ecosystem to ensure new talent meets industry demand. The plan is to work with the industry to develop 5,000 5G professionals over the next three years.
Aileen Tan, SingTel’s group chief HR officer, said it looks forward to sharing its learnings and expertise by working with IMDA and institutes of higher learning to co-create training programmes to help build a strong talent pipeline to power Singapore’s digital economy.
Talent pipeline
Demand for 5G professionals is expected to grow as Singapore’s 5G rollouts gather momentum and more enterprises adopt the technology, IMDA said.
The government awarded licences for two standalone (SA) 5G networks in April, allocating 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum to the StarHub and M1 joint venture, and Singtel, which plan commercial SA launches by mid-2021.
Last week, M1 introduced commercial 5G services on a non-standalone (NSA) network in limited parts of the city, while 5G network partner StarHub introduced a trial service in August, also using the NSA architecture. Market leader Singtel launched its NSA 5G network using the 3.5GHz band in selected areas of the city state on 1 September, offering free three-month trials for the first 20,000 customers. https://www.mobileworldlive.com
