Robot chefs and waiters: 40% of food services jobs at risk of becoming obsolete in 3 years
Additionally, self-ordering kiosks have popped up across fast food chains and bubble tea outlets in recent years.
With the influx of these machines, the future of eateries could see minimal kitchen and floor staff. Current employees will have to be reskilled in areas like customer satisfaction and service improvement.
Industry players said the jobs transformation is already taking place, and both employers and employees in the food and beverage (F&B) sector must embrace the changes or be left behind.
“The most challenging part is the mindset. There must be a willingness to adapt,” said Mr Andrew Kwan, president of the Restaurant Association of Singapore.
“There must be an agility of the mind to say, ‘let’s recognise the trends and make adjustments accordingly’.”
JOBS TRANSFORMATION MAP
To help the sector, a Jobs Transformation Map was launched last week, laying out plans for workers to upskill themselves and take on new roles, such as sustainability specialists or restaurant designers.
“For the workers, it is more critical now than ever to adapt to the speed of changes, and to keep on improving their skills and knowledge,” said Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling.
“Workers who take charge of their own career and professional development by constantly acquiring new skills are the ones who will stay relevant and highly employable.”
Firms looking to redesign jobs can get up to 70 per cent funding support.
An up to 90 per cent wage subsidy scheme is also in place for employers who are reskilling existing workers for new roles.
Ms Low said there is growing consumer demand for convenience, personalised and experiential services, and sustainable practices.
Another key trend shift she highlighted is a greater adoption of technology for digital solutions and automation equipment since the COVID-19 pandemic.
An ageing local workforce and changing career aspirations of Singapore’s youth have also led to more competition for workers.
These challenges mean that companies need to redesign jobs, embrace technology, and optimise their manpower model to stay competitive, Ms Low said.
Last year, the food services industry employed about 235,000 workers and contributed some S$4.5 billion to Singapore’s economy.
BRICS expanding opportunities to influence global governanceÂ
This week, the five foreign ministers of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will meet in Cape Town. On the second day of their meet they will be joined by 15 other foreign ministers representing Africa, the Global South, and “Friends of BRICS” nations. Among other things these deliberations will seek to firm up the agenda for the BRICS Summit to be held during August 22-24 this year.
What are the core issues that are expected to engage their interactions, and what makes BRICS an increasingly decisive forum for global governance?
BRICS 2.0
In its second decade, BRICS has emerged as the world’s most powerful grouping, with expanding recognition for being the locomotive of global growth. But BRICS’ economic rise also marks an important geopolitical drift, as this grouping has come to be seen as an alternative to the US-led “liberal world order.”
For instance, BRICS’ collective gross domestic product has surpassed the US-led Group of Seven advanced industrialized nations. In purchasing power parity terms, while the collective GDP of the G7 shrank from 50.42% of world GDP in 1982 to 30.39% in 2022, BRICS’ GDP for the same period enhanced its share from 10.66% to 31.59%.
As well, while the Covid-19 pandemic set in deceleration of the G7 economies, BRICS economies – especially those of China and India – continued to show strong potential.
Also, the Ukraine war has set the stage for BRICS becoming increasingly conspicuous, as the grouping is seen as the most reliable partner for Russia. Besides Russia itself, not one of the other four BRICS nations has supported any of the Western resolutions to condemn Moscow’s military operations. They have also not collaborated with Western economic sanctions that seek to impose obligations on other nations.
Indeed, BRICS has emerged as the singular support base keeping the Russian economy afloat. Also, while the United States has been busy raising a coalition of 50 or so nations to supply Ukraine for its war efforts, South Africa, the current chair, has prioritized BRICS playing a greater role in ending the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Individually as well, China and India have been exploring ways to facilitate an early end of the Ukraine war.
This clearly reflects the new bold BRICS. In face of the International Criminal Court having issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin for his so-called war crimes in Ukraine, South Africa has announced diplomatic immunity to all officials from Russia. This confidence and enthusiasm both within BRICS and about BRICS makes their parleys both interesting and intriguing, with implications way beyond these five nations.
BRICS expansion
For instance, about two dozen nations have expressed interest in joining the BRICS grouping. About 20 have formally applied for membership, which of course has remained frozen since South Africa joined the original BRIC grouping in 2011.
These applicants include nations from across the world: Algeria, Argentina, Baharain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and so on.
Within BRICS as well, the member nations’ reluctance to open up has witnessed change. China has typically been the most vocal supporter of expansion, while India was seen as the most reluctant. Over the years, Russia, Brazil and South Africa – in that order – have also shown greater inclination to add new members, though each of them has its own preferences.
The Ukraine war has seen Russia becoming increasingly supportive of BRICS expansion. This is driven by its need to expand its support base against Western censure and sanctions.
New Delhi remains concerned about Beijing trying to pack more of its friends into the forum, which could result in India getting marginalized. But with India now the world’s fifth-largest economy, New Delhi may have its own reasons to support friendly nations like Argentina, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
While BRICS members will need to build consensus on detailed criteria and other modalities for new members’ inclusion, this growing global interest surely enhances BRICS’ credibility and influence on global governance.
Expanding intra-BRICS trade has been the primary tool for strengthening the forum. This has lately seen increasing focus on exploring alternatives to reduce their dependence on the US dollar, and creation of a BRICS currency is expected to be on top of their agenda this week.
The freezing of Russian assets by the West has seen this becoming a priority, where some of the BRICS members have already put in place mechanisms for using local currencies. China has been working on globalizing its yuan. New Delhi has also evolved arrangements to trade in Indian rupees with 18 nations.
India’s agenda
India, which is going to host two back-to-back summits – of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on July 3-4 followed by the Group of Twenty meet on September 9-10 – has sought to use such multilateral meetings to evolve a consensus on its own agenda. But in addition to these preoccupations, the BRICS foreign ministers’ meet this week will see Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s bilateral meetings with China and Russia drawing special scrutiny and interest.
The Hiroshima G7 summit two weeks ago saw Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi having his first in-person bilateral meeting since the beginning of Ukraine war with President Volodomyr Zelensky.
During the war these two leaders had spoken four times by phone, and before that they had only met briefly at the Glasgow climate-change summit in 2021. But now, after this month’s meeting, Modi’s call to “raise your voice against unilateral attempts to change the status quo,” even if spoken in the context of border tensions between India and China, will require some explaining with India’s time-tested friend Russia.
This will also be seen against the backdrop of Modi’s meeting with Vladimir Putin during the Samarkand SCO Summit last September where the Indian PM had told the Russian president that “today’s era is not an era of war,” words that were repeated ad nauseam in Ukrainian narratives with Western media seeking to paint them as India’s warning to Moscow.
Likewise, with India preparing to host President Xi Jinping at the SCO and G20 summits, this has created strong expectations of the two sides finding a breakthrough in their border tensions.
These will soon enter their fourth year, with both sides maintaining heavy forward deployments while 18 rounds of senior-level talks and more than a dozen inter-ministerial meetings, plus meetings between their foreign and defense ministers, have not been of much avail so far.
At Cape Town this week, the foreign ministers of India and China will have their third bilateral in three months. India has maintained that bilateral relations cannot be normal until the standoff on the border is resolved.
Conclusion
All these bilateral equations of BRICS members are bound to impact their efforts at building a multilateral consensus on a range of issues, from expanding membership to initiatives for addressing global challenges. Many of these are also issues that get reverberated in other forums and will have a direct impact on the parlays of coming SCO, BRICS and G20 summits.
BRICS is seen today as the most formidable voice for the Global South on the high table of major powers of the post-World War II US-led world order. With the Ukraine war widening that bipolarity, BRICS will have to tread with care.
Second, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva becoming the next chairman of BRICS in August will also sharpen its credentials as an alternative to US-led global governance.
For BRICS to overcome its internal disjunctions and harness its historic opportunities will require not just strong mutual understanding and trust but everyday diplomatic finesse and foresight for bold initiatives. And this will remain a work in progress, as an expanded BRICS will only makes consensus that much harder to achieve.
Follow Swaran Singh on Twitter @SwaranSinghJNU.
Japan court rules that a bar on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional
Nevertheless, more than 300 Japanese municipalities covering about 65 per cent of the population allow same-sex couples to enter partnership agreements. But the right is limited in scope. Partners cannot inherit each other’s assets or have parental rights to each other’s children. Hospital visits are not guaranteed. Mizushima said theContinue Reading
Lawyer petitions to gag Move Forward on lese majeste law
A lawyer has asked the Office of the Attorney General to forward a petition to the Constitutional Court requesting that it order Move Forward leader and aspirant prime minister Pita Limjaroenrat and his party to cease their campaign to change the lese majeste law.
Teerayut Suwankesorn filed his ptition request with the OAG on Tuesday, saying he was acting as an individual and a citizen.
Mr Teerayut said he wanted the Constitutional Court to order Mr Pita and the Move Forward Party to cease all attempts to amend or abolish Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese majeste law.
He also wanted the court to order them to stop expressing opinions in speeches, articles, publications and advertisements which could lead to Section 112 being amended or abolished.
Mr Teerayut said he expected the OAG would forward his petition to the Constitutional Court in 15 days. If not, he would exercise his right under the constitution and submit the petition directly to the court for consideration.
He had earlier submitted a petition asking the Election Commission to examine whether Move Forward and its members, in declaring its policy to amend Section 112 during its campaign, had violated the constitution. The EC has not responded to the request.
Singapore coordinating action plans amid higher haze risk
WARMER TEMPERATURES
During the last strong El Nino event from 2015 to 2016, Singapore’s total rainfall from June to September 2015 was about 35 per cent below the long-term average, said the Met Service.
El Nino events also bring warmer temperatures to Singapore, with the warmest temperatures often occurring when El Nino events weaken typically in March to April the year following the start of the event.
Singapore’s average temperature over the June to September 2015 period was 28.8 degrees Celsius or 0.6 degree Celsius above its long-term average for that period.
For the period from March to April 2016, Singapore’s average temperature was 29.2 degrees Celsius or 1.2 degrees Celsius above its long-term average for that period, said the authority, adding that 2016, together with 2019, are Singapore’s hottest years on record.
“At this stage, there is no indication of the strength and duration of the El Nino, if it develops. Should a strong El Nino set in, well below average rainfall and warmer temperatures can be expected during the coming southwest monsoon season.”
The Met Service said it will continue to closely monitor the development of El Nino and IOD as well as the regional weather and haze situation, and provide updates when necessary. Haze and El Nino updates are available on its website.
Yunnan protest: Mosque closure sees clashes with security forces
SUPPLIEDProtesters have clashed with large numbers of police over the planned demolition of a mosque’s dome in a largely-Muslim town in Yunnan, China.
Social media videos showed crowds outside the 13th-century Najiaying Mosque in Nagu town on Saturday.
At points, scuffles break out between police and locals, who were hemmed in by hundreds of armed officers.
Yunnan, an ethnically-diverse province in southern China, has a significant Muslim population.
China is officially atheist and the government says it allows religious freedom. But observers say there has been an increased crackdown on organised religion in recent years – with Beijing seeking greater control.
In Nagu, the Najiaying Mosque had been a key landmark and in recent years had expanded with a new domed roof, as well as a number of minarets.
However, a 2020 court judgement ruled the additions illegal, ordering them to be removed. Recent actions to carry out that order appear to have sparked the demonstrations.
Videos of Saturday’s protests, verified by the BBC, showed lines of police blocking entry to the mosque, and group of men attempting to force their way in with some throwing rocks at police.
Other clips show the police later withdrawing, as the crowd enters Najiaying Mosque.
Police in Tonghai County, where Nagu is located, issued a statement on Sunday calling for protesters to surrender to police by 6 June.
“Those who voluntarily turn themselves in and truthfully confess the facts of violations and crimes may be given a lighter or mitigated punishment,” said the notice.
Calling the incident “a serious obstruction of social management order”, authorities also urged others to “actively report” protesters.
Protests in China remain relatively uncommon, but more have taken place since the pandemic where severe lockdowns and movement restrictions triggered displays of public anger.
The Hui are one of 56 ethnic groups recognised by Beijing and are predominantly Sunni Muslims. Yunnan, in the country’s south-west, is home to some 700,000 of about 10 million Hui Muslims in China.
They are often referred to as Chinese Muslims by local media, and are seen as well-integrated into Chinese society after centuries of intermarriage and assimilation.
Observers say Beijing has sought to have more control over religious groups in recent years – and how they operate in society.
In 2021, President Xi pledged to continue a “Sinicisation of religion” – the transformation of religious beliefs to reflect Chinese culture and society.
In 2018, hundreds of Hui Muslims in the Ningxia region engaged in a protracted standoff with authorities to prevent their mosque being demolished. Authorities later relented but insisted that its Arabesque features must be altered.
That same year, three mosques in Yunnan were also shut down for what was deemed to be “illegal religious education”.
China has also been accused of systematic human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang, where mosques have been demolished and Islamic religious practices banned. Beijing denies the accusations of abuse.
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Watch rocket launch first Chinese civilian into space
China has sent three astronauts to its Tiangong Space Station, putting a civilian into orbit for the first time. The Shenzhou-16 mission took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Tuesday morning in the Gobi desert in the country’s northwest.
President Halimah, PM Lee congratulate Turkish President Erdogan on re-election win
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong have written to Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on his reappointment as president, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) on Tuesday (May 30). Mr Erdogan won 52.1 per cent of the votes during Türkiye’s presidential electionsContinue Reading
Malaysia detains Chinese ship suspected of looting British WW2 wrecks
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement AgencyMalaysia has detained a Chinese-registered vessel suspected of looting two British World War Two shipwrecks.
The bulk carrier was seized on Sunday for anchoring illegally at the site in the South China Sea.
Ammunition believed to be from the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sunk by Japanese forces more than 80 years ago, was then found on board.
The UK Ministry of Defence had earlier condemned the alleged raid as a “desecration” of maritime war graves.
For years the historic wrecks have been targeted by scavengers for scrap metal. Their resting site is on the bed of the South China Sea, some 100km (60 miles) off the east coast of Malaysia.
The Royal Navy battleships, dispatched to Singapore in WW2 to shore up the defence of Malaya, were sunk by Japanese torpedoes on 10 December 1941.
The strike – which occurred just three days after the attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbour – killed some 842 sailors and is considered one of the worst disasters in British naval history.
Fishermen and divers first reported the presence of the foreign vessel to Malaysia authorities last month.
Local maritime police detained the Chinese ship on Sunday. The ship, registered in Fuzhou, had 32 crew on board, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said in a statement.
Cannon shells “suspected to be from World War Two” were uncovered during a search of the vessel. Malaysian agencies are also investigating the provenance of the ammunition.
The MMEA added that it is linked to a cache of unexploded artillery, said to be from the two sunken vessels, that police seized from a private scrap yard in the southern state of Johor earlier this month.
In 2017, during a tour of Malaysia, a local diver showed the then Prince Charles images that documented damage to the HMS Prince of Wales inflicted by scavengers.
The Defence Secretary at the time responded by saying the UK would work with Malaysian and Indonesian governments to investigate claims that up to six British warships had been plundered in their waters.
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Japanâs fusion start-ups starting to roll in money
TOKYO – Kyoto Fusioneering is raising big new money from domestic venture capital funds, banks and energy, engineering and trading companies, the latest indication that nuclear fusion energy ventures are becoming increasingly investible in Japan.
On May 17, Kyoto Fusioneering announced its 10.5 billion yen (US$75 million) Series C funding round had been oversubscribed, marking a repeat of its Series B fund-raising in February 2022.
The nation’s most prominent nuclear fusion technology developer has now raised 12.2 billion yen ($87 million) since it was spun out of Kyoto University in October 2019.
Kyoto Fusioneering’s management says it plans to use the new capital to hire more engineers, accelerate the development of fusion reactor materials and key components, develop its power plant engineering capability and continue its expansion in the UK and US.
Even before the new capital infusion, the company has already benefitted from the expertise of its corporate investors and the development of new technologies that could give it an early edge in what is expected to become a very large and highly competitive global fusion market.
INPEX, Japan’s largest oil and gas exploration and production company, said it invested in Kyoto Fusioneering because it was “the first initiative deemed to have commercial potential” under the INPEX Challenge Program, an in-house venture capital scheme established in 2021.
Read: “Japan boldly igniting a national fusion revolution“
“Through this investment, INPEX will explore the possibilities of supplying fusion energy by supporting Kyoto Fusioneering’s technological and operational development, while utilizing the knowledge cultivated through its own energy development business.”
In a transition away from fossil fuels, INPEX is conducting R&D in carbon capture, storage and recycling, hydrogen and ammonia, wind and geothermal energy, and now nuclear fusion.
The company’s ownership structure reflects the close nexus between corporate and official Japan. INPEX is 21.2%-owned by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and 4.1%-owned by Japan Petroleum Exploration (JAPEX), which in turn is 34.9%-owned by METI and 5.1% by INPEX.
Helical Fusion, another local start-up that aims to build a commercial helical fusion reactor, has reportedly raised capital from telecom carrier KDDI’s Green Partners Fund, the Nikon-SBI Innovation Fund and SBI Investment, which is also aiming to build a helical fusion reactor.
Funds raised in April this year and November last year will be used by Helical Fusion to fund its ongoing development of a helical fusion reactor, superconducting magnets and other related technologies.
Helical reactors are spiral-shaped and are a type of stellarator that confines plasma using magnetic fields. The technology is regarded as particularly well-suited for commercial reactors due to its stable operation.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Helical Fusion was founded in 2021 with technology developed by Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science. It has so far received about $6 million in seed funding from Japanese venture capital and corporate investors.
Helical Fusion’s R&D is led by co-CEO Junichi Miyazawa, a nuclear physicist from the Graduate School of Engineering at Nagoya University; Board Member Takaya Goto, a specialist in fusion reactor system design and professor at the National Institute for Fusion Science; and science advisor Akio Sagara, a nuclear engineer and professor emeritus at Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science.
EX-Fusion, yet another fusion start-up founded in 2021 and headquartered in Osaka, is venturing to commercialize laser-based nuclear fusion. It reports raising 261 million yen ($1.9 million) in 2022 from a Tokyo-based venture capital firm and Osaka University Venture Capital.
The company was founded by Shinsuke Fujioka from Osaka University’s Institute of Laser Engineering; Kazuki Matsuo, a specialist in laser fusion and high energy density plasma from Osaka University’s Graduate School of Science; and Yoshitaka Mori, associate professor at the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries (GSCNPI) in the Japanese city of Hamamatsu.
Via GSCNPI, EX-Fusion has introduced laser technology from Hamamatsu Photonics, a locally-based company that currently makes the world’s most powerful semiconductor lasers. Hamamatsu Photonics is working to develop a pulsed laser with the energy and repetition rate required for nuclear fusion.
In April, METI Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura visited GSCNPI, EX-Fusion’s R&D facility housed there and Hamamatsu Photonics, which was the driving force behind the school’s creation.
EX-Fusion has also joined the Institute of Laser Engineering, the University of Adelaide, Australian laser fusion company HB11 and other companies in a high-intensity laser project in Australia.
Underscoring the increasing investability of Japanese nuclear fusion ventures, Kyoto Fusioneering’s Series C funding attracted a wide and deep range of Japanese investors, including:
- JIC Venture Growth Investments Co, Ltd
- Coral Capital
- DBJ Capital Co, Ltd (Development Bank of Japan)
- Electric Power Development Co, Ltd（J-POWER）
- INPEX Corporation
- JAFCO Group Co, Ltd
- Japan Co-Invest IV Limited Partnership
- Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment Co Ltd
- JGC MIRAI Innovation Fund / General Partner Global Brain Corporation
- K4 Ventures GK（Kansai Electric Power Group）
- Mitsubishi Corporation
- Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co, Ltd
- Mitsui & Co, Ltd.
- MOL PLUS Co Ltd
- MUFG Bank, Ltd
- SMBC Venture Capital
Among them, JGC is Japan’s top plant engineering, procurement and construction company. Mitsubishi Corporation is its largest general trading company. MOL PLUS is the corporate venture capital fund of shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines.
For more detail on the origin, technology and business activities of Kyoto Fusioneering, see my February 2022 article in Asia Times.
Follow this writer on Twitter: @ScottFo83517667