SINGAPORE — Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said on Monday (9 Jan) that there is no U-turn on Singapore’s foreign manpower policy of a 30 per cent cap on foreign workers in the workforce with the introduction of the Manpower for Strategic Economic Priorities (M-SEP) scheme.
Launched last month, the new scheme allows companies with expansion plans to temporarily hire more S Pass and work permit holders than permitted by the prevailing quotas for their industry.
Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament Leon Perera had asked Dr Tan See Leng if the Government is still planning to cap the ratio of foreign workers at one-third of the overall workforce and whether the introduction of the M-SEP scheme puts Singapore at risk of breaching that cap.
Mr Perera cited the one-third figure from the 2010 report by the Economic Strategies Committee chaired by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
One of the recommendations from the committee reads, “We must also progressively raise foreign worker levies, to incentivise companies to invest in improving productivity. This will also ensure that our economy’s dependence on the foreign workforce over the long term does not grow significantly beyond current levels, of about one-third of the total workforce. We must at the same time raise the quality of the foreign workforce, and give employers incentive to retain experienced and skilled foreign workers.”
Mr Perera asked, “So does the introduction of M-SEP, which is giving companies extra foreign worker quota, amounts to a U-turn in the government’s foreign manpower policies. Or will it?”
“How will the government manage the risk that it will be seen by the business sector as a U-turn or as a sign that possibly in the future the government will U-turn and sort of make some concessions onto this foreign manpower policy and therefore lessen the drive to increase productivity and strengthen the Singapore call, which is the acknowledged policy aim of the government.”
The WP MP also asked for the percentage of Multi-National Companies (MNC) versus local enterprises among the 1,000 companies that are said to qualify for the M-SEP scheme.
In response, Dr Tan said the M-SEP scheme is how the Singapore Government see it can help a very highly selected group of companies that it has been working with.
“We know that they are on the cusp of being able to make that significant pivot and to help just give them the uplift that’s necessary. And hence it is very tightly scripted that between condition one and condition two.”
The two conditions that Dr Tan refers to, are that the companies must be “needle-moving firms” for Singapore’s economic priorities and commit to hiring and training local workers, by either increasing the size of their local workforce or sending their workers to approved training programmes.
Dr Tan had said earlier in his speech that firms can choose to hire local workers through their own channels or government programmes as long as these employees are paid above the local qualifying salary of S$1,400. Such firms will need to achieve a net increase in local hires.
Non-constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai from Progress Singapore Party (PSP) later stood to note that Dr Tan had not answered the question by Mr Perera about the U-turn on the 30 per cent for foreign workers in Singapore and also the breakdown of the foreign and local companies that qualify for the new scheme.
“You haven’t answered our fellow member Leon’s question on whether it’s a U-turn or not. You say you have to check the past information, but even in the past there was a study that that 33 per cent kind of cap on the foreigners. Then if you say that that is not necessary, the rationale that, in fact, is a U-turn.” said Mr Leong.
Dr Tan said, “There’s no U-turn because Mr Leon Perera’s point about the U-turn was whether this scheme subsequent would in terms of raising the DRC (Dependency Ratio Ceiling) numbers and also the work permit numbers above the prevailing quota appears to be a U-turn. So for the record, for the 30 per cent ratio, we will continue to monitor this very closely.”
He added, “because of the very highly selective nature of the scheme and because of the stringent criteria that we applied for condition one and condition two, we don’t expect in a penultimate the numbers to affect the proportion significantly.”
“The M-SEP is here to help us generate more economic opportunities for Singapore because in the second condition, it is about making sure that there are more training opportunities for Singaporeans and the jobs for Singapore.” said Dr Tan.
“So don’t look at it in isolation. The first condition is about our hub status, about our investments in R&D and about how we internationalize our operations. But the second condition, condition two is about the employer employment and the employability of our locals and the training of our locals. So today we live in a rapidly changing and rapidly disrupting world.”
But in the end, the Manpower Minister has yet to answer the question of the breakdown of local and foreign companies by the two MPs.
