There are a few things about Minister Tan Chuan-Jin you might have read about: He was recently appointed to take over the Social and Family Development Ministry from Minister Chan Chun Sing.

You may also have heard that:

He is a defender of the Central Provident Fund system.

He can take nice photos.

Explain SkillsFuture credits like the back of his hand.

Still goes back for In-Camp Training.

Does his part getting wet for charity.

Debates naysayers.

Be a keyboard warrior.

A recipient of appeals.

And he runs two Ministries! Until May 4, that is.

As Minister Tan is active on social media, young Singaporean readers might be keen to know more about him and his policies.

For example, what is going to happen to jobs in Singapore? How about PMET (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians) jobs? And why is there a hyphen in his name?

We sat down with Minister Tan on a week day morning -- before the announcement of his change of portfolios -- to chat with him over both important and unimportant matters that concern Mothership.sg readers.

Here are 5 pressing questions we managed to ask Minister Tan without being rebuffed.

Question 1: Why is there a hyphen in your name?

You must ask my mother. I’ve asked her before, she likes the idea of a hyphen. Which is just as well because I realised there are other people with my same name and they don’t have a hyphen. There is no profound reason.

I kind of like the hyphen and thought of having the hyphen for my children as well, but the decision was not mine to make, so they don’t have a hyphen in their names.

So my mom just liked the idea of it. But it is a capital ‘J’ not a small ‘j’ after the hyphen.

During PSLE, when you were shading the OAS (Optical Answer Sheet) or something [similar], do you have to shade hyphen in?

That’s a good question. I can’t remember! I don’t know, actually.

Question 2: How regularly do you check your Twitter or Facebook accounts? Are you an Apple or Samsung person?

I use Apple.

I was on Facebook even before I entered politics. In a way it has been very much part of my life.

I got onto Facebook in 2007. I did my Masters in Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. We did a term in the US. I was in Columbia, so I did some courses on social media and the Professors said that we all had to be on Facebook.

And I was like ‘What is Facebook?’ I had no idea what it was.

It turned out to be quite a useful platform, as I was away and I could share pictures with my family.

With a smartphone, you’d check your SMS, your WhatsApp, email, Facebook, you look at your newsfeed.

Anything interesting pops up, you respond to them.

Twitter and Instagram are a bit newer to me.

I have an interest in photography, so Instagram is something I find quite interesting. It forces you to take pictures in certain format so I got to figure out how to make it work.

These are valuable platforms to reach out to the public as well.

Question 3: Talking about Instagram and photography, which is the best photo that you're most proud of?

This was taken in Lake District during the pre-digital era.

I used film. It was very late at night, probably 7 or 8, quite dark. I was taking a picture of a lake scene.

In those days before digital cameras, we had no idea how the picture would turn out. You just have to take and calculate the exposure because it was quite dark.

It turned out to be quite magical. I’m in the process of trying to restore the negatives because it is ‘dying’.

This image was not what I saw then. I saw a semblance of it because it was quite dark. It was on a long exposure, I framed the picture with the trees in silhouette.

In those days you send the whole roll for processing and if one or two pictures come out really well, you’d be happy. I am not sure if this is my best picture but it was certainly one which I really felt was quite magical when the image was processed.

Question 4: You mentioned our labour force growth is going to slow down dramatically towards the end of this decade (in Minister Tan's speech during March's budget debates). Why should young Singaporeans be concerned with this development?

There is always both the opportunity and threat.

If we look at it from the downside perspective, we know from demographics that our local workforce growth will begin to taper off, which means labour growth from a domestic perspective will be fairly flat when you reach the end of this decade or so.

The labour market will be quite tight. While we still believe foreign labour will play an important role in the economy, we do need to manage that growth.

If productivity doesn’t improve, if we don’t transform ourselves, our economy will slow down.

Individuals can choose a slower pace of life, which is their right to do so, but at an economy level, when you slow down to, say, zero percent, what does that really mean?

When our economy loses its verve, will companies continue to be here? Companies want to be where there is dynamism and reasonable level of growth, and when companies are here they provide interesting jobs.

If we don’t manage the downside well, companies may begin to go, jobs will leave and young Singaporeans might want to leave in order to find more interesting prospects elsewhere.

I tend to be more positive because I think there’s more upside for us.

The tight labour market would mean good employment opportunities for all Singaporeans.

Our competitive advantage on many fronts, like our infrastructure, our attractiveness as an investment destination and stability, looks likely to remain for some time.

Even though our labour market may be tight, I believe the opportunities would still be here, investments would still come.

A tight labour market will force us to become more productive and efficient and we’ll actually be in a better place if we are able to manage the transition.

Question 5: There will be more PMET jobs in the future. How is that going to affect Singaporeans?

In Taiwan, Korea, maybe even China, you see so many colleges, people getting degrees of varying standards, and they end up without jobs because you don’t have an economy that can support so many jobs.

We’re nowhere near there, and we should avoid that.

Which is why the SkillsFuture initiative is so critical. It is not just about lifelong learning. It is about creating new pathways that are not anchored on degrees.

Because not all of us are necessarily inclined that way, there will be those who are holding degrees of varying qualities. And the employment opportunities and remuneration could be less attractive than those who went on a diploma route.

For individuals, especially professionals, sometimes we think that this continuation of education and training is for blue-collar jobs, but actually it is for everyone. Parents and individuals also need to look at different pathways, not just traditional pathways.

The Government has also taken the step to take in non-graduates into the same scheme as graduates, and that’s an important signal. Not many countries will be able to embrace these various efforts quite so extensively. So that again can reinforce our competitive edge.

In tomorrow's interview, Minister Tan tackles questions on CPF and handles an even tougher question - Guards or Commandos?

Top photo by Minister Tan Chuan-Jin.

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