May Day is a day of celebration in Singapore but a day of protest in some countries.

The workers in these countries protest against the shortage of jobs and stagnation of wages.  For them, unemployment is high and hopes of good job prospects are dim.  So, they take to the streets to vent their anger and frustration.

Singapore’s situation is not perfect but is certainly better.  Our employment rates across all ages are going up while the unemployment rate remains one of the lowest in the world.  May Day is thus a time to reflect and re-affirm our unity in tripartism.

For our nation and economy to keep doing better, we have to overcome some old challenges and tackle some new ones.

Global competition for jobs will be fierce.  This is an old challenge that will never go away. We have to fight hard and work smart to attract good investments and create good jobs for our people, young and old. The tight labour market is an outcome of our success.  It is always better to have to cope with a shortage of workers rather than a shortage of jobs.

Our new challenge is to reduce the social downside as we pursue the upside of economic growth.  We want to generate a virtuous cycle of economic gain and social gain.

With higher costs of living, it is imperative that we speed up real wage increase and slow down the widening of income gap.  As we slow down the increase of global manpower in our workforce, we must make better use of every worker we have at all levels, including our lower wage workers.

Our workplace must be more age-friendly for mature workers to continue working in a fair and meaningful way; and more family-friendly for more women and working parents to strike a better work-life balance. 

Old and new, these are major challenges we must tackle head on. There is no easy way to sustain our economic growth and social progress The best way to succeed is for the tripartite partners to work in unity and turn these challenges into opportunities for our people and businesses. Together, we can pursue a future of better jobs, better pay and better career prospects for all Singaporeans.

Let us do our best to make sure that May Day will always be a day of celebration here in Singapore, for a long time to come.

Happy May Day!