A member of the public, Keu Heng Tat, wrote to ST Forum yesterday (30 Jul) objecting to the recent call from Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chief Ravi Menon to tighten Employment Pass (EP) salary criteria.
At a public forum 2 weeks ago (14 Jul), Menon acknowledged the growing unhappiness among locals over job competition from foreigners. He said that the anxieties that some Singaporeans feel about the influx of foreigners are real and need to be addressed. His comments came after the Parliament debated on public concerns over CECA early this month.
Menon suggested continuing to raise the minimum qualifying salary for foreign S Pass holders and Employment Pass (EP) holders over time. He also suggested directly punishing the individuals in a firm found to have engaged in discriminatory hiring.
Mr Keu, however, was not convinced.
“I am flabbergasted whenever I read about the need to increase the EP salary criteria to regulate the foreign workforce,” he said. He commented that salaries of EP holders are already growing ahead of the prevailing salaries of their Singaporean peers.
“The published figure of $4,500 as the minimum salary for EP holders is misleading,” he added. “In the information technology (IT) sector, companies get EPs approved by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) only at salaries much higher than this.”
According to Mr Keu, this is based on his experience in applying for and renewing EPs for his foreign staff.
He said that having the minimum salary does not make sense in the current Singapore landscape where “there is no longer a Singaporean core in some industries, in particular IT”.
“Yet, MOM continues to set higher salary thresholds that far exceed the prevailing wages of Singaporeans in similar positions,” he complained. “Any increase to this salary threshold exacerbates the problem.”
He said that MOM is effectively dictating salary increments for EP holders and disrupting wage equity within the company.
“MOM should stop this wage lever for some industries and let employers decide on salaries according to their business costs, salary structures and staff performance,” he added.
