Study on Supply and Demand for Professional Occupations in Meeting the Need of a High Income Economy in 2020
The study on professional occupations aimed at assessing the imbalances in the jobs market, with many critical occupations enduring recurrent shortages amidst emerging surpluses of graduates observed for some professional positions. Ten categories of professional occupations were investigated comprising engineers, surveyors, architects, lawyers, accountants, doctors, dentists, veterinary surgeons, ICT experts and physical, engineering science & computing support technicians. 23 economic sectors and sub-sectors were examined. The study looked at the trends in these occupations, wage & salary developments, up-skilling and re-skilling opportunities for professionals and demand-supply outlook for the selected job types. The recommendations were quite similar to those found in the corridor studies, emphasising the importance of industry-academia collaborations to meet the talent requirements and strengthening programs for up-skilling and re-skilling. There were suggestions on purposeful policies to increase female professional participation rates. The need for improved data systems to better track professional occupations and supply-demand developments was highlighted.