SINGAPORE – Some cleaning, waste collection and pest management companies will be encouraged to expand their services beyond the environmental services sector amid labor restrictions.
This is a goal outlined by the National Environment Agency (NEA) on Monday in launching its refreshed plan to improve productivity and raise standards in the environmental services industry by 2025.
The NEA says that by building the capabilities of companies with sufficient resources, it foresees that about 10 percent of them will expand into more than one environmental service sector.
This comes as the industry faces a workforce shortage, exacerbated by the manpower shortage in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen many cleaners and waste collectors return to Malaysia.
The pandemic, however, has also helped reduce the industry’s reliance on manual labor as companies adopt more technologies such as robotic floor sweepers, the NEA said.
NEA’s revised plan to transform the industry aims to create more than 1,600 professional, managerial, executive and technical jobs by 2025.
These roles include data analysts and sustainability managers as the agency looks to support the industry’s green growth areas.
Speaking at the launch of the Environmental Services Industry Transformation Map 2025 at the Environment Building, the Senior Minister of State of the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment Koh Poh Koon said: “The environmental services industry will be positioned as one that solves the challenges of the national and industrial .opportunities to create value through research, development, and innovation.
“It will prepare environmental service companies for emerging growth opportunities in local and international areas, such as robotics and automation, resource recovery, circularity of materials… and capturing carbon from waste management.”
With the introduction of the Progressive Wage Model for the cleaning and waste management sectors from July 1, more than 44,000 workers are expected to benefit from future wage increases and advancement opportunities, he added. .
The industry now consists of about 1,700 companies and has more than 71,000 workers.
The plan to change the standards of the environmental services industry was first launched in 2017, with the pest management sector being included on the map about two years later.
In 2020, a study on the pest management sector commissioned by the NEA and Workforce Singapore raised issues including differing quality standards, partly due to low barriers to entry, as well as lack of manpower highlighted by poor public perception of such jobs.
