Following the announcement regarding the increment of the minimum wages for the S Passes and Employment Passes, Singapore People’s Party’s (SPP) Khan Osman Sulaiman opined that this move is “merely a PR stunt” by the Government.
Mr Osman wrote in his Facebook post this was to show that the Government listened to the people’s feedback and is acting to address employment matters for Singaporeans.
He further mentioned that increasing the wages for S Pass and Employment Pass holders is “never” going to ensure a strong Singaporean core and create good jobs for locals.
Explaining that the minimum wage policies for these work passes had been abused by employers, Mr Osman believed that the Employment Passes to the total number of the workforce should be capped. Therefore, he noted that without capping of passes, this would be an “adverse policy” for Singaporeans.
“The minimum wage policies for E & S Pass holders have been known to be abused by employers even before this latest round of announcement.
Employers can and have been caught retrieving back part of the declared employees’ salary to circumvent the regulations.”
He added that setting up a business in Singapore is “relatively a breeze”, and he expressed that there is “nothing to stop” people from employing Employment Pass holders as well as disregarding local candidates.
Other than that, the SPP politician believed that the saying of how Singaporeans are unable to fill the positions due to lack of skills and experience only applies to selected fields and skillsets. He implied that this issue does not occur in every level of the workforce.
Therefore, he requested the Ministry of Manpower to come up with “concrete solutions” rather than something that is deemed “counterproductive”.
Stressing that there were already many jobs lost to foreigners which could be filled by the locals, Mr Osman hoped that the Government could go to the root of the issue and “nip the problem in the bud”.