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According to the August 2023 release of LinkedIn’s Future of Work report, Singaporean workers came in first in the world in the pace of adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills at work — or so they say at least.
The Microsoft-owned social network has created an AI Skills Index on the basis of “diffusion” of AI-related skills among millions of its users across 25 countries.
In essence, it tracks the frequency with which they appear in user profiles and how they change over time, as compared to 1 January 2016.
With seven years of data, the Index has been regularly dominated by Singapore, which has led the pack from the very beginning, together with Finland following it in second place.
As of June 2023, the share of Singaporean professionals who have added AI-related skills to their professional profiles has increased by over 20 times compared to 2016 — significantly above the global average of nine times — with Finland reporting a 16 times increase, Ireland third at 15 times, India at 14 times, and Canada rounding up the top five with a 13 times growth.
AI opportunism?
However, the question remains how these skills are put into practical use.
It’s one thing to tout them on social media in the hopes of brushing up your public image ahead of a job search, and it’s something entirely different to productively deploy them at work.
This is why we have to take LinkedIn’s claims with more than a pinch of salt, as the methodology is not entirely scientific — or at least, it does not show exactly what it purports to show (is it about adopting AI skills at work or rather in the process of looking for work?).
What we can infer from it with a good degree of certainty though, is the fact that Singaporeans are leading the world in recognising the job market value of AI skills and are using them to their professional advantage at a greater pace than anybody else.
In the long run, however, their skills will have to follow their claims, since you can only go so far by pretending you know something you really do not. So, while candidates’ claims may be somewhat exaggerated, they should still reflect a genuine, underlying trend of improving AI competences among Singaporean job seekers.
Pooja Chhabria, career expert and Asia-Pacific head of editorial at LinkedIn, said Singapore has long been a “fertile ground” for AI disruption, thanks to the country’s “robust digital infrastructure, a strong framework for the protection of intellectual property, and a thriving ecosystem of venture capital firms, angel investors … that provide capital.”
We have seen rapid growth in AI development and adoption fuelled by startups and businesses over the years, in their efforts to carve out new niches or achieve greater competitive advantage.” [in Singapore].
– Pooja Chhabria, LinkedIn
Which is why, regardless of methodological concerns of such a study and how accurately it compares deployment of various AI skills between different countries (as well as industries), Singapore is bound to stay in the lead for the foreseeable future.
Featured Image Credit: Vulcan Post