Singapore - If companies do not have enough young talent, companies "will die", says Ian Wood, managing director of Lanxess, a specialty chemical company.

With its new S$823 million butyl rubber production plant investment on Jurong Island, Wood expects Lanxess to start recruiting at least 200 employees in 2009.

Even though the plant will only be commissioned in 2011, Wood says the company prefers to hire chemistry graduates even for corporate functions such as sales and marketing. With Shell and Exxon's investments in Singapore as well, he says the future increase in demand for chemists may cause a recruitment shortage. This is why the Economic Development Board is working with the chemical industry to encourage more Singaporeans to look at career options in the chemical industry.

"We have to get young kids interested in taking up chemistry as a career. At the moment in Singapore, it is not too bad, but the demand is going up significantly," Wood adds.

By sponsoring four students to represent Singapore at the 40th International Chemistry Olympiad in Hungary later this year, Lanxess hopes this move can help spark an interest in the younger generation about the specialty chemicals field. The company will also be a corporate sponsor of the Singapore Chemistry Olympiad later this year.

Reaching out to potential chemistry graduates is important for Lanxess, which wants to start the process of becoming an employer of choice for the select group. "They are the lifeblood of the company, and we don't want to fill out our plant with people from around the region or anywhere else. We want them to be Singaporeans as far as it is absolutely possible," Wood says.