Leong Mun Wai
Singapore
“Okay, yes, Mr Chairman. So, first question, can I confirm that MOM still does not track the change in work pass holders that turned to PRs in the resident PME statistics?”
“Yes. Third question, the increase in part-time workers and contract work are also examples of underemployment. Can the Minister explain why we do not need to be concerned that the proportion of part-time workers out of all employed residents has increased from 8.4% in 2009 to 10.1% in 2023, and can the Minister quote the corresponding inc…”
“Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I have four clarifications for the Minister. First of all, I would like to thank the Minister for his energetic response to my arguments. I have always respected him for that. However, because I think our views are still very different, I have —”
“For those who do not have a university degree, the prospects are even dimmer and younger workers also face the prospects of skills-related underemployment later in their career. Mr Chairman, let me conclude.”
“And I have three more. To many Singaporeans, including myself, the new policy does not make sense in certain areas. I agree with the Government that NRIC numbers, full or masked, should not be used as authentication, and that must be impressed on Singaporeans. Next question, why is there a need to do away with the masked NRIC policy?”
“In paragraph 40 of the report, it was stated that this July 2024 CM was also emailed to senior Public Service Leaders, including those with key responsibilities in IT and data matters within their agencies. Can I ask the Senior Minister whether any of these senior leaders have voiced concerns over the CM?”
The complete record
Every one of 978 lines we hold for Leong Mun Wai, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 17 of 20.
“Sir, for discussion on any topic, there are people who have a different view. But CECA is an economic agreement that is the concern of many Singaporeans. So, we are asking for more information.”
“Okay, in that case, Minister, sorry, can you repeat the question again?”
“The reason why I stated our position at the beginning of my speech is exactly in anticipation of what the Minister is going to ask on this. CECA is an economic agreement, trade agreement that we want to have more information on. Because the perception is that there are certain terms on the Movement of Natural Persons that are not beneficial to Singapore. So, we want more information, not necessarily directed at just CECA as an FTA —”
“The Australian FTA also contains a clause allowing ICTs to bring in dependants. For the China FTA, we are looking at the China FTA to compare with CECA, because both countries have very big populations. For the US FTA, we have received feedback from residents about why US citizens are allowed to buy properties in Singapore without paying the Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty. So, some of these FTAs, as I have said, we have to look at it on a case-by-case basis.”
“Including the Australian FTA, the China FTA, the US FTA, for example.”
“Yes, I said "some FTAs like CECA". So, these are the FTAs, including CECA —”
“No, but in our Motion, we said FTAs and CECA. So, "FTAs" is inside the Motion.”
“Because there is not enough data. We want to know more about CECA.”
“The focus of the debate today is on the impact of our foreign talent policy on jobs and livelihoods. So, we are focused on all the work pass holders and not one particular nationality. But —”
“As I said, in my speech, we do not have full disclosure on the Movement of Natural Persons provisions in CECA yet and, also, some of the other FTAs. So, we would like to know more. Before we know more information about that, we cannot shut down discussion on FTAs and CECA, which the Government is trying to do. The day after the Ministerial Statement on 6 July, the next day, in The Straits Times, the Government straightaway said CECA has no effect on our ability to regulate immigration. But the data provided by the Government is not conclusive. The Government only quoted one year's ICT numbers – 500 ICT in 2020, which is a COVID-19 year. The Government did not provide the data to prove its point. That is what I am driving at. As a result, although the Government may say, yes, we have told you many, many times and we have discussed this again and again, each time the disclosure is incomplete. That is why we have to continue discussing. Because sometimes, the time allowed for the discussion and the debate is also not sufficient. Of course, in the Ministerial Statement on 6 July, because we are going to file this Motion, we are also holding back some of the things we wanted to discuss. But, today, we can discuss everything.”
“We are supporting FTAs in general for the benefits that FTAs can bring: trade to our country, investments and all that. But we are concerned that modern FTAs do have provisions on the Movement of Natural Persons. So, for each FTA, we want to look into the details. That is what we are saying.”
“The FTAs, we need more information as well on a case-by-case basis.”
“We do not have enough information to support.”
“I think the Minister is misquoting me. I say I am supporting FTAs and, in general, including CECA, but I did not say that I am supporting CECA wholeheartedly. We need more information.”
“We have told them that they cannot make their views that public. But some of them chose to do that. We cannot stop them because we are a liberal party. We are not a party which will prevent all our members from having their own opinions. So, one or two party members mentioned that what I am doing in Parliament today is racist but that does not mean I am racist.”
“Sir, in response to the Minister's clarification: one, we have included CECA in the Motion today, as I have mentioned in my speech, because FTAs and CECA are part of the equation when we talk about immigration. So, it has to be included. As for CECA and FTAs, in general, we are supportive. We are supportive of FTAs and even CECA in general, but we need more information about all these FTAs. If we do not have more information, we cannot say we are wholeheartedly supporting them. It has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Two, the Minister commented on I having commented on CECA on many occasions. Can the Minister give me the examples of occasions that I have spoken about CECA? Other than starting from my Facebook post on 22 June, can the Minister give me instances that I have spoken about CECA before? Even for the 22 June Facebook post, it was after I had accepted the challenge from the Minister. So, I had started to comment a bit, to put things into perspective. So, this is the second point. In this second point, the Minister also mentioned that Dr Tan Cheng Bock had mentioned at the party launch about CECA in August 2019. Yes, he talked about free movement. But he was responding to the feedback from Singaporeans and the phrases "free movement" and "free flow" are not phrases owned by PSP. The Government Ministers had been talking about "free flow" way before Dr Tan Cheng Bock had said it. I do not think I need to quote George Yeo or about what the Prime Minister had said and all that. So, that is one point. The third point was about party members. PSP is an open party. We are liberal with members. We allow them to express their views and sometimes, there are one or two members or a minority of members who have different opinions.”
“We should not only help them look for a good replacement job, but also give financial help for the healthcare and education needs of their family during the period when they are underemployed, especially we should not allow a problem of this generation to have a long-term negative effect on the next generation. Mr Speaker, Sir, despite the pressure on PSP, despite the tone of the Law Minister's challenge to file a Motion, despite the underlying suggestion in the Government's Motion that PSP is trying to fan anti-foreigner sentiment, all of which my party has denied. The PSP has given careful consideration and felt it is our duty to raise the issue, file this Motion and have it fully debated. Singaporeans can see that the Government is taking this issue more front and centre in its public pronouncements, including in the 2021 National Day Rally. The debate must not end here. This must be the start of a healthy and proper dialogue. Singaporeans deserve better – for country, for people. Sir, I beg to move. [(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]”
“These will create a better chance for our new graduates of getting good jobs and older PMETs of retaining their jobs immediately. Two, to break up concentration and to eradicate discrimination, we should impose a cap on workers from a single nationality, based on the percentage of a company's staff strength in each of its business function. We think new laws may not be effective because a displaced Singaporean will not be in a strong position to go through a legal or arbitration process. In the long term, we aim for a 10% single nationality cap to ensure diversity in our workforce and seek talent from different parts of the world instead of predominantly from one country or region. We also aim for 25% to 30% combined PMET cap on work pass holders and PRs in the long run. New companies can be allowed to deviate from the cap provided they can prove there is a genuine shortage of such skills in Singapore and they have concrete and committed plans for localisation, including transference of knowledge and skills within a stipulated time. Three, the number of PRs and new citizenships awarded to work pass holders each year should be reduced to be in sync with the overall tightening of the foreign manpower to foster a longer period of social integration in order to reinvigorate our national identity. We also recommend the creation of Standing Select Committees for every Ministry in this Parliament with representatives from different parties to enable more informative exchange on policies and monitor the implementation of new policies until the anxieties of our Singaporeans are completely relieved. We should not forget those Singaporeans who have been displaced too.”
“This Government says discrimination is confined to a minority but do you not see the concentrations in companies, industries and workplaces? The whole situation gave the impression that this Government is not well-coordinated within itself. Each Ministry may be trying to do its best, but the whole Government is not aligned to achieve the best outcome. The misalignment that Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean spoke of at the Population White Paper debate in 2013 seems not to be resolved yet. Today's debate continues to be handicapped by the Government's unwillingness to give full disclosure on immigration and employment data. Not just restricted to the nationality data, but a lot of other data. We have filed a total of 23 Parliamentary Questions. The debate was further hindered by unnecessary distraction like comments about racial undertones. The Motion tabled by the Government did not reflect a full appreciation of the severity of the problem arising from the over presence of work pass holders. Neither does it contain substantial and concrete ideas to resolve the problem. If we pass this Government Motion, the debate today will very likely become another Population White Paper debate of 2013. So, the PSP calls for urgent and concrete measures to be implemented immediately to restore some balance in our job market. We recommend the following three measures. One, first and foremost, in order to raise the quality of our work pass holders, we should increase the qualifying salaries for EPs and SPs to $10,000 and $4,500 respectively in stages, over the next three years. In addition, a standard monthly levy of $1,200 on all EPs should be introduced immediately to reduce unfair wage competition.”
“" No male Singaporean jobseeker should be made to go through this kind of insult again. After all has been said, this Government needs to remember that having a job that commensurates with one's ability is the foundation of human dignity, and income stability is important for families to have a conducive environment for the children. If the breadwinner is out of job or does not earn enough, a host of social problems will arise. There is a Japanese saying, "Every child grows up while watching the back of his father." What this means is that if the father is doing well, he is likely to stand tall and look confident, and that will have a positive influence on the child. On the other hand, if a father is unemployed, his posture is stooped and self-assurance is low and that will have a negative influence on the child. Every time a resident relates his displacement story to me, my initial response is one of anger, but later I will cry when I see the effect on his family and children. Each such encounter stiffens my resolve to make Singapore a more compassionate society and to give each child a good childhood. Mr Speaker, Sir, so there is a huge divide between the Singaporeans' real-life experiences and the Government's narrative. We have debated the same issues in February 2013 at the Population White Paper debate. But Singaporeans' jobs and livelihoods did not improve after that. The Government says we have not enough talents. But there are many underemployed Singaporeans and we have a world-class education system with world-class Universities and Polytechnics. This Government says the jobs require skills that Singaporeans do not have. But do you mean so many Singaporeans cannot do the job of those average work pass holders?”
“As a result, the number of Singaporeans available to work in these sectors declined significantly over time, allowing foreigners to take up even more positions in such sectors. This is a mechanism that has likely caused the rapid rise in EPs in the infocomm sector, and not because of the growth of the digital economy per se. Question seven: why did the Government continue to consider discrimination confined to the minority of employers despite seeing the high concentration of EPs in certain sectors for the longest time? The ineffectiveness of the Fair Consideration Framework as a form of labour market testing is obvious as the work pass holders were seen concentrating themselves in certain sectors. When Singaporeans become a minority in certain sectors, Singaporeans will not be the first to be considered when new opportunities arise. The infocomm sector is a case in point, where many new jobs have gone to more newly arrived work pass holders each year. Based on feedback from many Singaporeans, the number of work pass holders is large enough and they have been here long enough to have formed networks among main contractors, outsourcing vendors, recruitment agencies, HR managers and even top managers, which discriminate against Singaporean workers in their hiring practices. Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat shared an episode recently, quote, "A Singaporean who attended a job interview at an MNC was asked by the foreign HR manager, 'You wrote in your CV that you spent two years with the SAF. What is SAF?' This HR manager exemplified all that is wrong with our immigration and employment policies for allowing a foreigner who has little knowledge about the local job culture to be in a decision-making position.”
“Yet, the EPs occupy 57% of the senior positions in the finance sector. And even in the domestic retail banking sub-sector, which serves essentially the local customers, they occupy 30% of the senior positions. This situation is a far cry from what the Monetary Authority of Singapore has done for Singaporean PMETs prior to the 1990s when localisation was the norm. Singaporeans would like to ask the Minister for Trade and Industry again whether foreigners are still supposed to complement us, as the Government has always been saying, or are they here to take over us. Question six: why has the Government allowed unfair wage competition against Singaporeans while talking about fair consideration for all? Many Singaporeans believe that we have arrived at our current predicament mainly because the Government has turned a blind eye towards unfair wage competition and then, later on, discrimination. In addition to the low qualifying salary described above, the EPs enjoy an advantage over their Singaporean counterparts because their employers do not have to pay the 17% employer's CPF contribution. On top of that, Singaporeans have to do in-camp training. Thus, overall, it is more cost-effective for an employer to hire a foreigner even with their relocation and housing costs involved. The unfair wage policies are the single most important factor behind the problems we are facing today because employers, after all, are profit seekers. This has a very debilitating effect on our Singaporean Core because, with competition and wage depression, many Singaporeans make the rational decision to avoid sectors that have competition with foreigners, like the engineering and infocomm sectors.”
“Even if they are skills that Singaporeans are lacking initially, it is the responsibility of this Government to ensure that enough Singaporeans are being trained by our world-class Universities and Polytechnics. Shortage in the first five to 10 years is acceptable, but not 20 years. Hence, the Singaporeans would like to ask the Minister for Education, (a) what has gone wrong in the last 20 years in terms of not producing enough local talent for the finance, infocomm and professional services sectors especially; and b) what is the strategy to train Singaporeans to meet future industry needs? Question four: by the way, what kind of skills do the average work pass holders possess that Singaporeans do not have? We have been attracting mainly the average work pass holders, judging from the low qualifying salaries for EPs and S Passes. Even with the latest revision in late 2020, the respective salaries for EPs and S Passes are at $4,500 and $3,500 only, not to mention the much lower levels in the earlier years. Many Singaporeans believe that the work pass holders are here to compete for our jobs. They do not necessarily possess unique skills, let alone create jobs for Singaporeans. Singaporeans would like to ask the Minister for Trade and Industry how the average work pass holders create jobs for Singaporeans, as claimed by the Government. Question five: if the work pass holders do not possess unique skills, then why are they dominating some of our key sectors? The finance industry is a good example. Singapore has long been a financial centre of this region and we have very conducive tax policies to promote this sector. As we have grown with the sector, including myself, Singaporeans do not lack the skills to grow this sector further.”
“For example, a displaced Senior Vice President of a bank may not be able to find the same replacement job and end up being a Grab driver. The second type of underemployment is when Singaporeans cannot find work for the number of hours or days she plans to do. For example, a Singaporean may want to work for eight hours a day, five days a week, but can only find enough work for four hours a day, two days a week. She is still considered employed, as a person is considered employed as long as she has worked for at least one hour during the reference period under our employment statistics. So, the low unemployment number that the Government is touting may be masking a deepening underemployment problem which we have to look into. New graduates and the 40- to 50-year-old local PMETs are the most vulnerable to the underemployment trap because the former does not have work experience, and the latter needs to keep working to pay the bills. Hence, Singaporeans would like to confirm with the Manpower Minister again, (a) whether there are not enough Singaporeans to meet employers' demand or employers prefer work pass holders; (b) is MOM monitoring underemployment; and (c) is the objective of the Government to protect jobs for Singaporeans or just to protect jobs? Question three: if there is a large pool of underemployed Singaporeans, then the shortage of talent is not due to numbers, but skills mismatch. In that case, what has happened to our education system, world-class Universities and Polytechnics? Singaporeans are disappointed that our world-class Universities and Polytechnics were not able to produce enough talent for our key industries throughout the last 20 years.”
“On the one hand, Singapore is hosting 400,000, maybe 350,000 now, pass holders, and 250,000 Permanent Residents, accounting for about 20% and 15% of its PMET workforce. On the other hand, Singapore has 500,000 lower-wage workers who need Government financial aid to live decently, and more than 100,000 gig workers deprived of basic employment benefits and future prospects, and hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans under the various job support schemes and many more underemployed, including the increasing number of self-employed workers. Are there not enough Singaporeans or are they not given the opportunities by employers? So, the numbers are there. Question two: are there really more jobs created for Singaporeans if underemployment is a growing problem? The Government has maintained that there are more jobs created for Singaporeans than for work pass holders. However, many Singaporeans doubt whether there is net job creation for Singaporeans after stripping out the immigration effect from the employment statistics, the statistics which lump Singaporeans and PRs together in a category called "Residents". Hence, Singaporeans would like to clarify with the Manpower Minister whether the 380,000 PME jobs supposedly created for locals from 2005 to 2020 represent a net job creation for Singaporeans during that period. I know those numbers were given in the last Ministerial Statement on 6 July, but there are a lot of questions behind it. If there are insufficient jobs created, a portion of Singaporeans will become unemployed or underemployed. Underemployment can be defined in two ways. The first type of underemployment is when a Singaporean is doing a job that does not fully utilise his most valuable skills.”
“We noted more committees and task forces were set up to look into the work pass holders issue after I accepted the invitation to have this debate in May. The Prime Minister has also spoken on the need to manage the quality, numbers and concentrations of foreigners in Singapore. So, the issues I raised are legitimate and it would be unfair if the Government continues to label PSP and I as xenophobic. However, so far, the Government only talks about tackling discrimination with legislation and does not display a full appreciation of the severity of the problem. I think that would be the main focus of our debate today. What are the causes, how serious is the problem and what are the solutions? Legislation may not be effective because a displaced Singaporean will be in a vulnerable position and may not want to go through a long arbitration process. Priority must be given to preventing displacement instead, and not legislation, although legislation is still welcomed. We look forward to the Government coming up with concrete measures to tackle the quality, number and concentration issues identified by the Prime Minister. To begin with, the Government must listen to the affected Singaporeans more patiently and then recognise the serious shortcomings of its current policies. PSP has listened to the people and has condensed their feedback in the following seven questions, which should provide invaluable insight into how we can craft the new policies. Question one: why do so many Singaporeans have difficulties in finding good jobs when there are so many work pass holders in Singapore? There is a big imbalance in the job market.”
“I quote the then-Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean at the White Paper debate on 4 February 2013, "Singaporeans have expressed concerns over job competition, having too many foreigners and overcrowding. We face a series of unprecedented crises in the past decade – 9/11 in 2001, SARS in 2003 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The responses we took threw our planning out of gear. In particular, the growth in foreign workforce, total population, infrastructure and housing were not aligned. This contributed to the anxiety, crowdedness, integration issues and the daily inconveniences faced by Singaporeans today." This was in February 2013. So, the problems we are facing today are not new. The quote from the Deputy Prime Minister then was the closest you can get from a Minister in admitting policy failures that have caused widespread hardships to many Singaporeans and Singaporean workers. The White Paper was to provide a roadmap to align total population, foreign workforce, infrastructure and housing based on an assumed population of 6.9 million in 2030. The Government did moderate the overall workforce growth from 3% before 2013 to 2% thereafter and, belatedly, established the Fair Consideration Framework as a form of labour market testing in 2014. However, the job and livelihood problem for Singaporeans did not improve and the underlying sentiments in our society continued to fester. The issue of jobs and livelihoods resurfaced as a major issue during General Election 2020 as the finances of many Singaporeans deteriorated in the severe situation because they did not have the savings to cope with an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic since many were displaced prior to the pandemic.”
“While Work Permit holders like the construction workers take jobs that Singaporeans generally do not want to do, the work pass holders are the Employment Pass (EP) and the S Pass (SP) holders who are collectively known as foreign PMETs because they take up jobs as professionals, managers, executives and technicians in our job market. The speed and size of the immigration due to easy immigration policies and unfair wage policies forced many Singaporeans out of jobs and then into long-term underemployment. The angst among Singaporeans reached a high in 2008 when, in that year alone, 80,000 PRs were given out to work pass holders. As a result, the last large displacement of Singaporean PMETs became a major issue in General Election 2011. It is unbecoming of this Government to have touted foreign talent as the reason for relaxing the immigration policies and bring in large numbers of average work pass holders instead. Hence, Singaporeans would like to ask the Minister for Trade and Industry to clarify further what is the definition of "foreign talent" and whether the hundreds of thousands of work pass holders in our country are all considered foreign talent. Singaporeans welcome all foreigners to complement us for mutual benefit. However, because of the potentially large numbers of average work pass holders who want a job in our country, we should have been more careful in managing the quality, number and concentration of these workers from the beginning. The crux of the matter is that we should have been selective in taking in real foreign talent. The failure to do was a policy failure and that is why a rebalancing is required now. By the time the Population White Paper was released in January 2013, our population had already grown by 40% since the late 1990s.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, our Motion today is about the jobs and livelihoods of Singaporeans, not xenophobia or racism, nor is it directed at any nationality or race. In order to achieve greater economic success, Singapore always needs the right foreign talent to complement our Singaporean Core. We agree to that. The PSP is pro-Singaporean and welcome foreigners to work with Singaporeans for mutual benefit. Let me be clear: the PSP is pro-free trade but not free-for-all trade. Free trade must benefit all our people and not just some people. We want the benefits of free trade to be shared equitably with foreigners here and among all Singaporeans. However, when there is an imbalance of interests, we would need to redress the situation. In seeking to rebalance our foreign talent policy, we are not advocating a closed Singapore nor blaming the foreigners. After all, we are responsible for our own policy. The Government has been grappling with the foreign talent policy for the last 20 years. We take the foreign talent policy to mean all the immigration and employment policies which the Government has implemented since the late 1990s for attracting foreigners. Actually, there is not a foreign talent policy defined by the Government and debated in Parliament at the beginning. However, there was a concept of foreign talent, which was mooted in the late 1990s, in line with the idea of competition for global talent in the new knowledge-based economy. Initially, Singaporeans largely did not react negatively to it because we are basically industrious and pragmatic and ascribed to learning from others. However, the Government opened the floodgates for relatively low-wage work pass holders instead of attracting foreign talent.”
“Sir, I beg to move, "That this Parliament calls upon the Government to take urgent and concrete action to address the widespread anxiety among Singaporeans on jobs and livelihoods caused by the foreign talent policy and the provisions on Movement of Natural Persons in some free trade agreements like the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement." Mr Speaker, Sir, it is a shame that this Government has persistently tried to link the public discourse on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) to racism. I hereby state categorically that the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) is against linking the public discourse on CECA to racism. It is confusing Singaporeans and even dividing Singaporeans. All that Singaporeans want to know is why jobs and the livelihood situation for many Singaporeans have worsened over the last 20 years. "Give me the data. Give me the answers," Singaporeans are crying out and PSP is responding to their call when we accepted the invitation from the Law Minister to do this debate. The Singapore-India CECA, is not a race issue but a trade agreement issue. The FTAs and CECA are part of the equation when we evaluate the costs and benefits of past and present immigration and employment policies. So, they have to be part of this debate. As of today, the information disclosed by the Government is not convincing enough to prove that CECA has not affected Singapore's ability to manage immigration and that it has generated net benefits for Singapore. As a result, the PSP is strongly against the Government shutting off further discussion on the matter. But we agree that CECA is not the main issue today.”
“Mr Speaker, to what the Minister has said just now, I think there is a bit of misinterpretation. What I have said is that we fully support FTAs. We know that that is important for Singapore. And we appreciate the point that we are not using the movement of people as a bargaining chip in the negotiation of the FTAs. But as to whether CECA has contributed to the influx of some of the PMETs into Singapore in relation to our overall foreign talent policy, we have to explore that. And we do not agree that CECA is net beneficial to Singapore at this stage.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for the two questions. As I said, the answers to the two questions actually require a bit more debate and study. But, first, I want to say that PSP and Hazel and I, we are for FTAs. Having heard that jobs and livelihoods of our people are not being used as a bargaining chip, we are very reassured that our interests, Singaporeans' interests are being taken care of. However, whether CECA has contributed to the overall influx of nationals from that country, I think we need to study a bit more. Because we have to go back and look at the numbers provided by the two Ministers to see what is the share of the Indian PMETs in our overall PMET workforce and to take into consideration what Minister Tan See Leng has said about how we really need them. Then we would like to know whether there are skills transfer programmes, whether our education system is catching up fast enough and also the various practices in the market, before we can make a final conclusion that CECA is really neutral to beneficial for Singapore.”
“And, today, then you have to say that, "On my watchlist, I have this number of companies that have a very large concentration of PMETs from a single nationality". So, we really want to understand how MOM actually administers this whole foreign PMET policy. After this, maybe I will add a few more points, I will ask a few more questions about the approval process, some of the experiences I had in the private sector with regard to MOM and its approval process. But my questions are these questions for now. 3.39 pm”
“So, it is about rebalancing and when we talk about rebalancing, Minister Tan also said, one thing is to ensure that Singaporeans can compete fairly or there is no unfair competition. He explained that not having to pay CPF for the Employment Pass holders is not a disadvantage. I respect you for your experience in the private sector, Minister Tan. As an employer, is that not a wage concession? So, how can we say that Singaporeans are not being treated unfairly in the job market competition? That is my sixth question. My seventh question is, Minister Tan said that there is simply not enough local talent. Again, I will raise the point which I have said just now: then what happened to our education system? What happened that after 20 years, you are still telling Singaporeans that we have not enough talent? Of course, we are not saying that we can substitute the foreign PMETs completely. But at least there can be some rebalancing, and we get back to my question just now. And if the Minister admits that there is some displacement of Singaporeans, then that rebalancing means we must slowly allow Singaporeans to be given the first opportunity to take up the jobs first. My last question is, the Minister talked about diversity, but here again, is it not something that MOM should have done long ago about diversity in the workforce when we introduced our foreign talent policy? We also know, because we have worked in an international environment before, that the group dynamics at the workplace can change very fast with changes in the nationality composition in the company. So, especially when MOM is monitoring and regulating the granting of the work passes, do you mean you have not, at the beginning, taken that as an important consideration?”
“I do not understand what you mean by meaningful, because I am going through those points. Okay, never mind, I will try. The fifth question is, we have had this foreign talent policy for 20 years. But if you look at the way MOM has administered and regulated the flow of foreign PMETs into Singapore, you find that the policies, of course, over time, there is a bit of tightening at a time but, generally, it seems to be too little and too late. For example, the foreign talent policy has started in the late 1990s or around the year 2000. But the Fair Consideration Framework was only introduced in 2014. Only in 2016, I was told that the Fair Consideration Framework watchlist was started. Do you mean there were no problems the one- and a half decade before that? And the threshold salaries that we have, just EP alone, up till 2020 last year, it was still $3,600. At the kind of threshold salary plus no CPF, do you think we are attracting the right foreign talent into Singapore? That is the fifth question. My sixth question is, I totally agree with Minister Tan See Leng about what we are driving at, it is not abolishing things, it is not totally eradicating things. We are also talking about a rebalancing, but the rebalancing cannot come as a result of a natural attrition from COVID-19. There must be a policy recognition that whether our past foreign talent policy was on the right track or not. If we review the policy and we think that there are certain things that we need to change, then make it a policy point. Do not allow natural attrition to come by and say tens of thousands have left Singapore. That is not the way we conduct policy.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I am raising questions, can you be more specific?”
“Let us not push the blame to the Universities and the Polytechnics so easily. It has been 20 years since we started the foreign talent policy. Within 20 years, have we still not got our act together in training our people? That is my third question, what is the total number of Singaporeans that are displaced over the last 10 years? They would like to have the job that was taken by a foreigner, but were not able to. They lost their current job and when they got another job, they got a lower pay. There is also a significant number of Singaporeans who are under-employed. If you look at the growth of the Grab driver population, the growth of our traineeship programme and many of our independent workers, are they voluntarily opting for the independent lifestyle or are they facing difficulty in getting a permanent job? Has MOM done a study on those? Have you got the statistics? That is the third question. The fourth question is, of course, we are particularly concerned about the finance and the IT sectors. Minister Tan See Leng has given some numbers. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to digest those numbers. We will maybe discuss that in our debate in the future. But the fourth question I want to ask is, really, how many foreigners are there in the IT and finance sectors versus the number of Singaporeans and PRs? That is the fourth question. I think the Minister might have given some figures just now. The fifth question is, the Minister said that we are not competitive, Singaporeans are not competitive but —”
“Indeed, you would admit that no other FTA has given and stated specifically that 127 professions can come in to work. You may say that no one has come in through the CECA route but the clause is there. It is up to the other party, whether they want to use it or not and, most importantly, up to our Government to administer our employment policies. Because our employment policies are already quite relaxed in granting work passes to foreigners, so the Indian nationals do not have to come to Singapore through the CECA route. So, the first question I want to ask is whether the movement of people is used as a bargaining chip. The second question I want to ask is, we should not focus on the number of people that got into the job market through the FTAs or CECA. They have provided some conditions. Most importantly is how those conditions under the FTAs interplay with our domestic employment policies. The number to focus on is, how many of the respective FTAs' nationals – in the case of CECA, it is Indian nationals – have come to Singapore and taken up our PMET jobs? What is the share of that as a percentage of our foreign PMETs, and then, of our total PMET jobs? That is my second question. The next point I want to bring up or question is, the Government has admitted that something needs to be done. There are concerns by Singaporeans regarding jobs and livelihoods. This has been going on and on. Have sufficient measures been taken to address them? One of the questions I want to ask is, has the Government actually tried to find out what the total number of displaced Singaporeans is? I would think that you cannot deny that there are Singaporeans who are displaced. Your narrative is that it is because they do not have the skills.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank Minister Ong Ye Kung for the clarifications on our position. I also thank Minister Ong Ye Kung and Minister Tan See Leng for their detailed explanation of the situation on foreign PMETs, foreign manpower, Free Trade Agreements and CECA. As to Minister Ong Ye Kung's questions, I will leave them to the last or we will leave them to be answered in the debate that we are going to conduct later on. But there are a few things I would like to bring up here or a few questions I would like to ask to clarify the situation further. One, we are not against FTAs. We know the importance of FTAs for Singapore, as an open economy and especially as a small city state. However, what we are concerned about is what price we are paying. The first question I would like to ask is, in the process of negotiating an FTA, what are the bargaining positions that we can give? I read things like, because we do not have many bargaining chips, the implication is that we may have to be a bit more relaxed with the movement of people. One question I want to ask is, is the movement of people or natural persons used as one of the bargaining chips when we are negotiating an FTA? The whole purpose of PSP – as well as Hazel and I – bringing up the issue about foreign manpower or foreign PMETS or foreign talent, whatever term is used, and the FTAs is because it is about Singaporeans' jobs and livelihoods. When PSP's Dr Tan Cheng Bock raised the issue at the August 2019 launch of PSP, it is due to the huge amount of feedback that we got from the ground. By raising the issue, we had hoped that we would get some response from the Government to explain more about FTAs, in particular, CECA.”
“Minister, yes. I think some Singaporeans – because there are like about 100,000 gig workers in Singapore – and then, there are also Singaporeans who are unemployed. Given this COVID-19 environment now, if you raise the wages high enough, there is a threshold that I think Singaporeans will come in, even as a general construction worker. That is my perception. Thank you. Please enlighten me.”
“Okay, okay. Yes, thank you. The other thing is that when we give all this assistance to the construction companies, do we actually tie the companies down for future improvements in their processes and automation, and also employing our local workers? This is the second question. The third question is, if the answers to both the first and the two questions are along the line that is positive, then I would agree that I will support of the Bill and the Government can act according to its discretion to bring in the foreign workers.”
“Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister for enlightening me on all the progress in getting Singaporeans back into the construction industry. I must apologise that I should read the ITMs more from now on. But I hope the Minister understands that, as an NCMP, I do not have a lot of resources. Every day, there are about 50 to 100 pages of materials from Parliament coming into the portal. But I have a few questions. I am very happy because I hear that Singaporeans are going into the construction industry. But what the Minister has said just now is about those like managers with scholarships and all that. How about the general construction workers? For example, how many Singaporeans have come in again to be just a general worker, like substituting those permit workers? Because I believe that when we raise the wages, some of these Singaporeans will come in. I always find it very uncomfortable and I always find it very pitiful to see very strong Singaporeans queuing up at the F&B outlets to collect the food for delivery. I always wonder: such a strong, able-bodied Singaporean, why is he not doing other work? So, this is one question. How many Singaporeans have actually come back as a general construction worker? Of course, I would expect Singaporeans to be able to be trained for doing work like bricklaying and all that —”
“On the contrary, contractors will have more time to adapt to the new supply chain and increase the employment opportunities of local workers. At the same time, young Singaporean couples can be allocated housing, which is paid for by foreigners and property buyers. (In English): This view is one more opportunity for us to reaffirm our confidence that Singapore can survive and do better with a different economic model. This model will focus on developing and training our well-educated local human resource and strategically bringing down the number of foreign workers over time. We urge the Government to consider our proposal seriously and amend this Bill. 8.32 pm”
“Therefore, the appropriate solution is to increase the ABSD to reduce the demand from foreigners, curb the property market and use the collected ABSD to pay for the financial assistance to contractors. In this way, foreigners and property developers will be the ones who, ultimately, foot the bill. Next, the Government may not want contractors to be just enjoying the cake. The current problem is that contractors have long relied on foreign workers, so we have to urge them to speed up the re-design and automation of their work processes. The Government can incorporate relief measures into its strategy to transform the construction sector. This is also an excellent opportunity to attract some Singaporeans to rejoin the construction industry, as contractors now can pay higher wages to Singaporean workers, considering the substantial increase in foreign workers' wages. However, the Government has not taken any actions to encourage such development. If the Government boldly increases ABSD, there will be enough additional revenue to provide housing for Singaporean couples waiting for HDB flats, so that we can maintain the pace of family formation and Total Fertility Rate, prevent future population gaps and not leave the next generation with another problem. Mdm Deputy Speaker, this Bill is a defeatist policy with a single objective, because it casts us in the shadow of foreign labour shortage, which, in turn, causes loss to contractors and then aggravates housing shortage, directly affecting our lives. However, if we apply the right policies, this may not necessarily be the case. With our proposed increase in ABSD, limiting the number of foreign workers will not worsen our lives.”
“If we increase the ABSD, restricting the number of migrant workers will not worsen livelihoods that much. Instead, our contractors will have more time to adjust to a new supply chain and may increase employment of our local workers. Our young Singaporean couples get their rental flats and all these, paid by the foreign buyers of our local properties. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Mandarin, please. (In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Deputy Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to provide financial assistance to help local construction companies and contractors pay for the increase in wage costs incurred as a result of the further tightening of foreign workers coming into Singapore. We sympathise with the difficulties faced by our contractors, who have been severely affected by the pandemic, but there are other issues to be considered before we support this Bill. First, and most importantly, who will pay for this financial relief? According to the Bill, an independent assessor will be appointed to assess the increase in the cost of foreign workers due to the tightening of the foreign labour market, and the assessed cost will be borne by the developers. However, with the current surge in property prices, it will be easy for developers to pass on the increased cost to buyers, many of whom are Singaporeans. If this happens, it will be equivalent to an additional indirect tax. The way to prevent this from happening is, first of all, to curb optimism in the property market. Curbing property prices is also what we need to do now to avoid exacerbating social inequality. In addition, Singaporeans, especially young couples planning to start a family, are facing a housing shortage. Hence, it is a good policy to control excessive buying from foreigners.”
“In this way, foreigners and property developers who may have to lower prices to retain buying interest will be the ultimate payers. The Government may also not want the contractors to sit on their laurels after the new measures kick in. The current problem is partly caused by contractors having relied on foreign labour for far too long. So, the relief assistance we give to the contractors must come with commitment from them to accelerate process redesign and automation. The Government can integrate the relief measures into the built environment sector strategy. This is also a great opportunity to attract some of our Singaporeans to rejoin the construction sector because contractors can now pay higher wages as the wages of migrant workers have shot up significantly. But the Government has so far not taken any initiative to encourage this, as far as I know. If the Government dares to take the bold move to make a bigger increase in the ABSD, there may even be enough additional fiscal revenue to provide for rental units for our Singaporean couples who are waiting for their BTO flats. In this way, we can also tackle another problem and, that is, maintaining our family formation rate and total fertility rate, preventing a COVID-19 gap in our future population structure, which may become another problem in the future. Mdm Deputy Speaker, this Bill is a single objective policy. It is defeatist in a sense because we are succumbing to the effect of a migrant worker shortage, inflicting damage to our contractors and then worsening the housing shortage, which directly impact our lives. However, this need not be the case if we are prepared to bear with short-term inconveniences to shake ourselves off the addictive reliance on foreign labour with the right policies over time.”
“Mdm Deputy Speaker, this Bill is to provide financial relief to help our local construction companies or contractors to defray the increased migrant worker cost as a result of the further tightening of our border controls. We empathise with the difficulties faced by our contractors who have been severely ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic but there are also other considerations to be made before we can support this Bill. First and foremost, who is going to pay for the financial relief? Under the Bill, an independent assessor is appointed to assess the foreign manpower cost increase as a result of the tight migrant worker situation and the assessed cost is to be paid by the property developer, mainly. However, with the surging property market now, the property developer can easily pass on the increased cost to the property buyers, many of whom are Singaporeans. If this happens, we will be imposing another indirect tax on our people who are already suffering under the COVID-19 pandemic. The way to prevent this is to, first, dampen the bullish sentiment in the property market. Reining in property prices is what we need to do now in order not to exacerbate the social inequality in our country. In addition, for our people, especially the younger couples planning to start a family who are facing a housing shortage and a long Build-To-Order (BTO) queue at the moment, it would also be good policy to rein in the aggressive property purchases by foreigners. Hence, a more appropriate solution is to increase the Additional Buyer Stamp Duty (ABSD) to reduce foreigners' demand, dampen the property market and raise revenue to pay for the financial relief for the contractors.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. In reply to the Minister's comments just now, we are very interested to take up the CECA issue at some point in time. I think we still need to understand the situation more, like what the Minister has said. However, I must state at the outset that the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) and myself are not being xenophobic. We are just stating the economic effects some of these free trade agreements have had on our economy – the feedback gathered from many suffering Singaporeans. We still need to know the situation better but we are definitely not xenophobic and, definitely, racism has no place in our overall thinking. It is all about economics, about livelihoods and, today, we are here talking about COVID-19. It is also about livelihoods, about lives over economy. Sometimes, we may have to give up some of our economic benefits for the sake of lives. But at the end of the day, we still need to balance and see what is good for our overall livelihoods. So, I will take up the challenge from the Minister – that we will take up this issue at an appropriate time in the future.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have one clarification for the Minister. The Minister confirmed that last year, there was a contraction of about 180,000 in non-resident employment and there was also an outflow of these people from Singapore. Recently, there is also a number that said that there is a shortage of about 60,000 workers in the CMP sectors. So, can I confirm whether there has been a re-entry of 130,000 foreign workers into our country in the last few months?”
“Okay. Then, inside the Budget and financial statements, there is a table of total receipts, and inside that, it includes what we call cash flow. If we use the cash flow, the Budget deficit will also not be so big. So, again, you are defining —”