Ravi Menon: Gearing up for new and evolving jobs in financial services

Remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at "Growing Timber" MAS-IBF Webinar Series, 26 November 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Good morning and thank you for joining us.  MAS and IBF are launching today the "Growing Timber" project – a series of monthly webinars and events focused on jobs and skills in the financial services sector. 

Jobs – the Central Economic Challenge of Our Times

In August this year, at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium discussing the economic challenges facing the world, Senior Minister and Chairman MAS, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, said: "The central problem is in creating enough jobs in the first instance, and in raising the quality of jobs for more people over time".

I can't agree more: jobs are the central economic challenge of our times.  The success of economic policy is not measured by how well financial markets are doing, not by how well companies are creating new products, not even by how fast GDP is growing.  The ultimate measure of economic success is this: are we creating enough good jobs for our people?

Governments across the world are embracing the jobs agenda more purposefully. Even central banks, hitherto focused almost exclusively on inflation control, are increasingly paying attention to the job market – and rightly so.

In Singapore, the government has always been conscious that creating good jobs for Singaporeans is of paramount importance.