Tan See Leng
Singapore
“We are aware of the Singapore Workplace Report 2026, produced by the Singapore Institute of Directors and Gallup, and we are studying its findings.”
“The Taskforce for Responsible Retrenchment and Employment Facilitation (Taskforce) actively reaches out to all retrenched local employees. In 2025, 77% of Mandatory Retrenchment Notifications (MRNs) were submitted at least seven days ahead of the employee's last working day and 73% of MRNs were submitted at least two weeks ahead.”
“From 2022 to 2025, vacancy rates for technical maintenance roles in the real estate services sector, which includes facilities management, have been lower than the overall job vacancy rate, except in 2025 (see Table 1).”
“The Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) works with sector agencies to determine the courses which are required by the respective industries. The SWDA currently funds more than 100 courses, spanning a wide range of mental health-related fields.”
“In the first quarter of 2026, the profile of retrenched residents aged 50 to 59 was broadly similar to the profile of all retrenched residents, predominantly comprising professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) and were mainly from wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, financial and insurance services and profession…”
“In 2025, around 4,200 resident professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) aged 45 to 59 were retrenched, higher than 3,200 in 2024 and 3,500 in 2023. Their six-month re-entry rate remained stable at 48.5% in 2025, compared with 48.9% in 2024 and 50.1% in 2023.”
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“I think in the interest of time, I will keep it short. COMPASS will not make the application process more cumbersome or lengthier. Much of the information required is already collected upstream in our databases such as the firm's workforce profile. We would be able to automate these processes so that the processing times will not be lengthened. Earlier on, in my main speech, I have also shared that there will be a rubric that published on our website. Companies, before they even apply, they can actually score the potential candidate on the rubric. And they will also know before they even apply, what is the chance of this EP being approved. Most of the businesses that we have spoken to, that we have gotten feedback from, appreciate the transparency, the clarity that COMPASS brings. I think this is a very important feature for us in designing and implementing COMPASS. COMPASS is meant to tell the world we are open, we are connected and we are welcoming of foreign work pass holders to come in and work as long as they can help uplift our economy, contribute to our workforce in uplifting and strengthening the Singaporean Core.”
“So, this churn, when put through COMPASS, will more than adequately take care of what we intend to do over the horizon. I hope that sort of gives you a picture of where we envisage we will move to.”
“The short answer to your first point about whether we can consider firms' support in terms of the local training, the transfers of skillsets, I think as we evolve the framework, we are not closed off to this thinking. At some stage, we will be able to continue to tweak the framework. Of course, we need to ensure that tweaking is not done in such a frequent manner that after a while, companies who want to look into investing into our country itself would think that we are having a series of moving goal posts. That is not the intent. So, the consistency, the constancy of this framework must be preserved. However, at the fringe, anything that would strengthen it, to see how we can continue to improve our Singaporean Core, the transfer of skill sets, I think would be something that we can consider. If you talk about comparing with the numbers today, how many would pass the framework, I think it is difficult to compare. Because in terms of, for instance, even at C1, notwithstanding the fact that we have a qualifying salary, even at C1, we measured according to the sector, what is the 65th percentile. So, I think, just off the cuff, finance in general, already you can see that there are two separate categories. Suffice to say, from now till the next four to five years, when all the renewals of existing applications have been taken that into consideration, I think that the churn in EP holders would take care of whatever slack that exists together, even if the numbers do not meet the COMPASS framework that we put up today, the churn will take care of that. In terms of the perspective, today, on any given year, our churn in EP holders is about 40,000 a year. So, that is the number of new applicants applying to join and people leaving.”
“30 pm However, as we support them, as we use funding to support this group, the moment they get to a certain size, I think it is also the social compact and their responsibility to ensure that our Singaporean Core continues to be supported, to be brought along with them as well. So, it is not just about caring for our fellow Singaporeans, it is also about carrying them alongside with us as well. That is the intent of this initiative. I hope to get your support and your concurrence on this.”
“I thank Assoc Prof Jamus Lim for his two points. Well, I was an entrepreneur and I founded a firm and subsequently, I have also in due funded a couple of startups. I think that as a growing firm, the first thing that you would assess, for the founder or the entrepreneur, is to assess the market and to know what are the rules that they will operate under. Having said that, I think the length of time that we have given for everyone to try to adjust to the framework itself, I think it is a fairly long runway. And the flexibility, the nimbleness, the responsiveness of the entrepreneur or the founder, is going to be quite paramount in ensuring that the firm will ultimately succeed. And I am pretty sure that there are many private equity affiliate professionals here amongst us, I think who would probably agree and testify to that. So, on paper, it looks like as if it may cause a cliff effect, but I think in reality, given the nuanced approach, we believe that there will be enough time for people to adapt. As far as the foundational criteria is concerned, we are going to start this on 1 September 2023. I think there is still time for us to see when it comes to the implementation, how we can actually get a set of nuanced data for everyone to be able to access and also to understand. Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, the reassurance that I want to give to all startups, all SMEs, is that we are trying our best to support our own Singapore business ecosystem. We have the Singapore Global Enterprise Aspiration, earlier on, we have also shared the Enterprise 2030 vision and we do have multiple schemes available to support them. 12.”
“The nationality diversity consideration was also the result of making sure that we diversify our risk in terms of our dependency on the source of talent itself. To a certain extent, it is also guided by the current pandemic that is still ongoing. When certain restrictions came about, we were not able to let this group of EP holders travel freely back to their home countries to visit their relatives and come back. So, taking all of these into consideration, taking into account our various needs, we came up with a very nuanced approach in terms of the framework. In fact, there are many foreign media articles out there that claim that we have become extremely unattractive because of the fact that many of these EP holders could not come back. And actually, it is not because of the fact that we did not allow them to come back. It was just because of public health border controls that we were not able to bring them back here to work. So, with that, this framework, to a certain extent, was also influenced by that.”
“I hope that sort of gives the Member some insights into the thinking behind it. What was your third point?”
“Let me try to categorise Mr Gerald Giam's questions. I think to his first point in terms of whether COMPASS was from the FCF. COMPASS has actually taken into consideration the many months of data analytics, in terms of the hiring patterns, based on diversity, based on qualifications, salaries and also the concentration of PMETs within the firm, to come up with a fairly nuanced framework. The fact that the vast majority of the companies actually passed when we put them through the COMPASS framework is actually a testimony to the fact that many companies for the past many years have been very progressive, very responsive and very nimble to the needs of our economy. 12.15 pm As far as the diversity itself is concerned, it is a function also of the ability of the company to access the skill sets based on the individual sector. So, let me put it across in a perhaps, in a more illustrative way. For those that are in IT, particularly when you deal with a lot of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and very advanced deep machine learning, even with deep-tech itself, depending on the sources where this group of skill sets are developed, you are not able to completely assume that you are able to get these skill sets from all around the world. Hence, we designed it to be such that in those areas that we have shortage of, and the fact that when we decided to pivot into the Industry 4.0 roadmap, we therefore needed to complement these gaps. So, when we took all these into account, we felt that this is what is needed for our economy to get to the next step. The exact details, going into the granularity of why we want to do the cut-off at the various benchmarks, I think I have already explained it before in my speech.”
“Having said that, notwithstanding, the criteria being where they are today, as I have shared earlier to the Member of Parliament Mr Desmond Choo's point about setting this $20,000 exemption, it is not carved in stone. As long as the general economy and industry can accept and be able to stomach, we will continue to improve this framework. So, I hope that the Member can take away that this is a very highly differentiated framework that we are trying to achieve for all of our Singaporeans.”
“I will take the first question and Senior Minister of State Koh will take the second point. I thank Mr Liang for his thoughts on whether this will increase. We have not, in our considerations, decided on setting a quota or number for the EP framework because EP holders are meant to be the top-tier in terms of all our work pass holders. Our design of COMPASS is, as it has arisen as an acronym, the "C-O-M-P" part stands for "complementarity" and the "A-S-S" stands for "assessment". For us, the complementarity is what is most important. We are trying to make this framework a very highly differentiated system. A set of criteria which allows us to titrate, to be able to right site and continually uplift our level of competitiveness vis-a-vis globally. Our aspiration is to be a global city, brimming with opportunities for our Singaporean Core, continue to provide opportunities for our young. But we are also cognisant of the fact that with the multiple disruptions, the pace of the disruptions, the accelerated change and transformation that is happening around the world, it behoves us to now move into a system where every EP holder coming, every foreigner coming in, will have to pull his weight in working, complementing our locals, at the same time supporting and driving our economy. The long answer to his question is that we do not have an aspirational target in terms of a fixed number of EP holders. As long as the economy continues to grow, as long as it continues to uplift all of our Singaporean Core in terms of their skillsets, their competencies and, most importantly, their take-home wages, I think the framework will be one which is going to help us to continue to do so.”
“Mr Chairman, may I answer Mr Louis Chua's second point. Just to reassure the Member, we are indeed still evaluating. There has been a black swan event that has happened within the last two-and-a-half years and, given the current volatility and the crisis in Russia and Ukraine, if we had taken on certain positions just prior to this in, say, 2019 and so on, we would have been quite badly affected. So, I think that when it is ready, we certainly will come back and update everyone in Parliament. Thank you for your patience.”
“I thank Mr Patrick Tay for highlighting this point. Today, qualifications from the top-tier universities remain a fairly useful standardised measure of a candidate's quality and competency levels. Other factors such as relevant working experience are more subjective and are more difficult to assess at-scale. Qualifications is one criterion under COMPASS. The description of the top-tier universities as available on the MOM's website. They do not just involve and include universities, they also include top-tier technical and vocational institutions as well. A firm can still hire a candidate with no degree-equivalent qualifications if they perform well on other criteria. In fact, under COMPASS, there is greater flexibility. As a candidate without a degree-equivalent qualification can still qualify for the EP if the application scores well on the other criteria. As I have said earlier on, there are vocational institutions which are highly recognised in specific fields that can be included in the list of top-tier institutions. MOM will work with other sector agencies to recognise professional certifications that are well regarded by the industry. I hope that answers your question.”
“Two of the criteria which concerns the firms are, I believe, a couple of firsts that we have achieved as a nation. My exhortation to all employers is to support us, strengthen and work with us collectively, as a country, as an economy, as a nation, to build this complementarity and to build our local workforce to compete globally. 12.00 pm Having said that, it is not our intention, but we will not hesitate to take employers to task if they are found to have falsely declared information to get the EP application approved. And we have embarked on a fairly seamless process in terms of data analytics and we will be able to pinpoint and triangulate this.”
“Perhaps I can answer the Member's second question first. COMPASS is an additional stage in the entire EP application process. So, in no way will it loosen our current EP framework. The fact that the majority of our existing EP holders pass COMPASS is an encouraging one. And COMPASS affirms the value they bring. It instils the discipline on such firms to continue to select complementary candidates, uphold diversity and also support local employment. So, COMPASS is an added framework on top of the first stage, which is the EP qualifying salary. There are and there will be some firms which do not pass COMPASS. These include firms that make a habit out of hiring EP holders not due to their high calibre or skills but based on the convenience of networks, such as an old boys' club, and without taking heed of our calls to develop the workforce. COMPASS ensures that these firms cannot simply carry on with their status quo and they must fundamentally relook their hiring practices. As far as the gaming itself is concerned, we will strengthen our enforcement process. We will have in place strong governance measures to guard against any dishonest attempts to game COMPASS. Today, we already have processes to enforce against fraud for criteria considered in our current framework, such as salary and qualifications. Similarly, we will also develop processes around additional criteria, such as the shortage occupation list. And the necessary verification processes upon which we look at the educational qualifications criterion will also be put in place. And, of course, employers certainly will not be able to get away with changing the job title to claim bonus points. We have spent many, many weeks and months deliberating this framework.”
“And we believe that for those companies that have a very progressive and forward-looking vision in terms of improving their workforce, we will not hesitate to roll out schemes to support them to transform because, at the end of the day, our focus is raising the quality of the EP holder, to the top one-third in the local PMET space. Of course, we believe that, with that, we will be able to uplift our entire workforce to compete globally and also not just develop and grow our own timber, but to be complemented by foreign talent in those areas that we have a need for.”
“I want to thank the Member Mr Desmond Choo for checking with us on the $20,000 bar. We took a practical approach on this. The EP holders at the $20,000 mark are typically senior management. They include C-suite personnel and specialists at the top of their field. This is especially so in certain sectors, including even some of the SMEs. They would most likely have gone through even more selective hiring processes to be appointed in their company since these roles typically require very specific capabilities or skillsets. Regardless of these exemptions, firms are expected to practise fair hiring and also to develop their own local talent pipeline. More importantly, our focus is to continue to help Singaporeans rise to the top by enabling them to compete strongly. Just like the qualifying salaries, this $20,000 exemption bar is also not carved in stone and we will review it from time to time. As an aside, we actually look at the number that would cover local PMETs and we find that this is the level at this particular point in time, that COMPASS would cover quite a high majority of individuals. Hence, the bar, at this point in time, is at $20,000. In terms of the HR community playing a role in supporting capability transfer and localisation efforts, we work closely with the community, whether it is Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) and IHRP, and beyond that, with companies, trade chambers and so on. We exhort them to encourage HR managers to undergo courses to continue to keep themselves updated with regard to our policies and the improvements towards our framework, whether it is the Fair Consideration Framework to now, the new COMPASS that we are going to roll out.”
“The HSS allows eligible companies to hire more migrant workers to provide part-time home cleaning services to households. This scheme seeks to increase options for households to meet their needs for domestic services. HSS companies can hire female migrant workers from India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, in addition to the existing approved countries or regions for the Services sector. The scheme was recently expanded from September 2021 to include (i) other household-related tasks, such as grocery shopping, car-washing and pet-sitting; and (ii) an additional country, Cambodia, where HSS companies can hire female migrant workers from. Since then, 27 more companies have joined the scheme, bringing the total number of HSS companies to 103. The HSS is estimated to have benefited 16,000 households. These households typically require domestic services for only a few hours a day or week. The Ministry is looking to further expand the scope of services which HSS companies can offer, to better support households. We will share more information on this soon. It will take time for HSS companies to make adjustments to their services and prices as more companies come on board the scheme and more households tap on HSS companies to meet their needs for domestic services. We will monitor the market response and engage households and HSS companies to assess if further adjustments are needed to this commercial scheme.”
“Yes, Mr Chairman, I have a clarification. With regard to the Non-Traditional Sources (NTS) List, I mentioned that the NTS List will start in 2021. It should start in 2023.”
“But it also acknowledges that the waters are choppier, the fishes are harder to come by and catch, and if we just stay put and do not shift our anchor, we will soon run out of time and opportunity to fish! So, we will have courses to teach you how to catch the harder-to-catch fish, we will equip you with upgraded equipment – all the advanced rods, the sonar equipment – to fish, including using the new COMPASS to guide you to bountiful sources of fish, notwithstanding choppier waters. With workers, unions, businesses and the Government on the same ship together, I have no doubt that Singapore will continue her voyage into an even brighter future! [Applause.]”
“To ensure that the list continues to remain relevant, the CPF Board will continue to review it on an ongoing basis. It strikes a balance between allowing CPF Investment Scheme participants the flexibility to diversify their investment portfolios to enhance their retirement nest eggs, while safeguarding members' interest. So, we have to be very careful when striking this balance, because it involves CPF monies which should be safeguarded for retirement. We are also studying if a lifetime retirement investment scheme can be introduced for members. It is meant for members with the risk appetite and sufficient investment horizon who may not wish to actively manage their investments. We will provide further information and updates when ready. Meanwhile, members who prefer not to take any risks with their retirement savings already enjoy interest rates of up to 6% per annum on their CPF savings, where investment risk is entirely borne by the Government. We will continue to look at how we can strengthen retirement adequacy for all of our members, so that they can enjoy financial security in their later years. Let me conclude. We are making many moves to upgrade the capabilities of locals and complementarity of foreigners, uplift vulnerable workers and mature workers and uphold inclusive and progressive workplaces. But we acknowledge there will always be more work to be done. But we will continue relentlessly to put in the hard work of supporting our workers and the businesses. Charting new waters is never easy. I am sure Members here are familiar with the teach-a-man-to-fish analogy to equip ourselves for the lifelong journey ahead. Well, the essence of what we have laid out today reinforces this.”
“45 pm Next, Mr Louis Chua suggested having members seek higher investment returns on their CPF monies by expanding the range of financial instruments available under the CPF Investment Scheme or allowing members to invest alongside Government investment vehicles. We have said this before and, Mr Louis Chua, coming from his financial background, should be familiar that there is no silver bullet in achieving higher returns. Higher returns come with higher risks and a greater potential for losses. And this is true of any investment fund, and Government investment entities are not immune to this. As Mr Desmond Choo pointed out, there is volatility and uncertainty in the investment climate. Today, CPF members can already invest in a diverse range of products, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), shares and gold products. The CPF Board welcomes more ETFs to join the CPF Investment Scheme. However, ETF providers' decision to apply for inclusion are, ultimately, based on their own commercial assessment. To safeguard members' interest, the CPF carefully considers these factors, such as investment-related fees and track records of the products, before approving any such applications. Only products listed under the Singapore Exchange or registered with local authorities are included under the CPF Investment Scheme as foreign products are subject to changing regulations in jurisdictions over which we have no oversight and no control. As Mr Louis Chua mentioned, 75% of CPF Investment Scheme members made profits or broke even in the reporting period of FY2020. This means that 25% of members made cumulative total losses. More product offerings do not necessarily equate to higher returns.”
“In her cut, Ms Sylvia Lim suggested allowing members with CPF balances beyond the required retirement sum to make lumpsum withdrawals from their CPF savings before age 55, highlighting those who face income disruption. The Government already provides targeted and directed support to these members. For example, to help those who face financial hardship during this difficult period, we introduced an entire suite of support measures, including the COVID-19 Recovery Grant. Singaporeans will also receive support from existing broad-based permanent schemes, such as Workfare and ComCare. Importantly, all of these do not draw down on Singaporeans' CPF savings and, as Mr Desmond Choo wisely highlighted, it will not come at the expense of retirement income. In his cut, Mr Gerald Giam requested for additional flexibility for seniors to use CPF to purchase 2-room Flexi flats and to pay for the resale levy. Before members turn 55, they can request for their Ordinary Account (OA) savings not to be transferred to their Retirement Account (RA) if they intend to use it for housing. After they turn 55, members committed to a housing purchase may also use their CPF balances in excess of the Basic Retirement Sum to finance the housing purchase. I would also like to reassure Mr Gerald Giam that CPF Board already exercises some flexibility for seniors facing financial hardship seeking to use CPF to purchase a 2-room Flexi flat. To pay for any resale levy, home buyers can use the proceeds from the sale of their first subsidised flat. Members who still face difficulties affording a property, including 2-room Flexi flats, can approach HDB for assistance. And I am sure HDB will also work with relevant agencies like CPF Board to provide help to members based on their specific needs. 6.”
“Let us create better employment prospects for our workers and work together for a better future! (In English): Mr Chairman, before I close, allow me to share one aspect of uplifting our workers, which is to strengthen their retirement adequacy. As announced in the Budget Statement, we will do so in three ways. First, we will adjust the Basic Retirement Sum to provide members with higher monthly payouts to keep pace with long-term inflation and rising standard of living. We expect more members to receive at least the Basic Retirement Sum payout, with about eight in 10 active CPF members turning age 55 in 2027 being able to do so. This is up from 67% for the cohort that turned 55 in 2021. Second, we will implement the next step of the CPF contribution rate increase for senior workers. Finally, the enhanced Workfare Income Supplement Scheme, we will top up the income of half a million lower-income workers, with payouts amounting to over $1 billion in CPF and in cash from 2023. Mr Patrick Tay asked in his cut about raising the wage ceiling for CPF contributions and Mr Heng Chee How also raised this at the Budget debate. We are encouraged by the union's support for the CPF system. The CPF wage ceiling has been periodically updated since 2003 to keep pace with wages of resident workers. The most recent update was in 2016. We will review the CPF wage ceiling and engage employers and employees ahead of any changes. These efforts are aimed at helping Singaporeans save more and boost their retirement income. This will, however, be meaningless if we do not continue to safeguard the savings that Singaporeans set aside for old age. This is why we must carefully assess any calls for more liberal use of members' CPF monies.”
“For example, currently, some firms are unable to hire foreign workers they need due to certain Work Permit restrictions. We will allow firms in the Services and Manufacturing sectors to hire their workers from non-traditional sources on Work Permits, for a tight list of occupations with fewer locals, for example, in Precision Engineering and Food Manufacturing. MOM will also support MTI in introducing a scheme to give additional S Pass and Work Permit quotas to firms that contribute to Singapore's strategic economic priorities. More details of these schemes will be available around the end of this year. Thirdly, we will continue to support our SMEs in their transformation journey. For SMEs looking to automate and transform, they can tap on the Productivity Solutions Grant, the Enterprise Development Grant or the SMEs Go Digital programme. Last month, Workforce Singapore launched the new Career Conversion Programme for SME Executives. SMEs can enjoy up to 90% salary support to hire mid-career local jobseekers. These are just some of the many schemes out there. I urge SMEs to tap on the schemes available and begin their transformation journey. Singapore is a small country, devoid of natural resources. The road to nation-building has never been smooth-sailing since Independence. Back then, Singapore was often likened to a small fishing boat in a big ocean, which could be easily swept away in a big storm. Our pioneers built on their resilience to ride out the odds and propel Singapore forward. After decades of hard work, Singapore has grown and progressed. We are no longer a small fishing boat, but a steady big ship. I hope businesses will bear in mind the perseverance of our forefathers and continue to adopt the same attitude in their transformation.”
“This includes the provision of the Jobs Growth Incentive. We will also roll out transitional offsets for the increases to senior worker CPF contribution rates and transitional support for the moves to uplift lower-wage workers. The moves are also timed carefully and implemented gradually to moderate the cost and manpower impact on businesses. At the same time, I also want to assure our fellow Singaporean workers that they will always be at the heart of our efforts to drive economic growth. We will also endeavour to create good jobs. Mr Chairman, let me now say a few words in Mandarin. (In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] This year, we are making various moves to upgrade the capabilities of our local workforce and complementarity of our foreign workforce, uplift vulnerable workers and senior workers, and uphold inclusive and progressive practices. Most business owners whom I have spoken to understand the need for these moves. However, some employers, more so amongst the SMEs, are concerned. They share that they face difficulties hiring locals and the announced moves may make it worse. In addition, they worry about the higher business costs. I would like to assure SMEs that we hear your concerns. We will help in several ways. Let me make three points. Firstly, our foreign workforce policies will be sensitive to the profiles of our SMEs' circumstances, which may require differentiated treatment. Under COMPASS, candidates will be assessed on not just their qualifications and wages but also the hiring firm's diversity and support for local employment. For firms with less than 25 PMETs, they will, by default, be treated as having "met expectation" on firm-related attributes. Secondly, we will provide some flexibilities to firms and for certain job roles.”
“However, I would like to make it clear that this does not signal a broader liberalisation of Work Permit sources across the board. The Tripartite Partners have a clear consensus on the importance of uplifting our local lower-wage workers whom the Work Permit holders directly compete with. Hence, we will continue to keep the Work Permit sources tight to support the efforts to uplift lower-wage workers and the ongoing moves to be more manpower-lean. Taken together, the two schemes, the M-SEP and the NTS Occupation List, will complement the changes we are making to our work pass framework by supporting the growth of businesses that contribute to Singapore's strategic priorities and, ultimately, creating good job opportunities for locals. I have spoken at length about our upcoming moves. I have explained why they are necessary to restructure our workforce to prepare for the opportunities ahead and move towards a more equitable society. Many businesses, both local and foreign, whom I have spoken to generally understand this. They have been very supportive and also want to be good, progressive employers. However, they also share two challenges. One, difficulties in finding workers; and two, increase in business costs. We take this feedback very seriously. On the difficulty in finding workers, I earlier touched on the schemes we have to address this. The calibrated reopening of our borders should ease some pressure and, as mentioned earlier, there is still an untapped supply of various segments of our population, and businesses can do more to redesign their jobs to attract these segments of workers. On rising business costs, MOM has put in place measures to support our businesses. Our support measures will provide up to $6.8 billion to businesses in financial year 2022.”
“The scheme will provide such firms some flexibility to hire S Pass and Work Permit holders beyond the prevailing DRCs for a limited period of time. For a start, MTI and participating economic agencies will support firms that meet their criteria of undertaking ambitious investment, innovation or internationalisation activities. This would include firms that participate in existing schemes, such as ESG's Scale-up SG and EDB's Research and Innovation Scheme for Companies. In addition to supporting our strategic economic priorities, we will require these businesses to commit to developing our local workforce. The details are being worked out and we aim to introduce the scheme later this year. In addition, we recognise that some businesses hire rank-and-file workers on S Passes due to the source restrictions for Work Permit holders. With the moves to increase the benchmark for S Pass quality, MOM will allow businesses in the Services and Manufacturing sectors to hire some of these S Pass holders on Work Permits. We will introduce a Non-Traditional Source (NTS) Occupation List, which is a tight list of rank-and-file occupations where employers will be allowed to hire NTS foreign workers on Work Permits. The list will be introduced on 1 September 2023. The list will include occupations, such as welders, food processing workers and specialty chefs. I know many enjoy the multicultural cuisines in Singapore. I hope that this will reinforce our position as a food paradise, supporting the cultural heritage of Singapore. The list will be subject to a quota, amongst other controls, and we will study carefully if more occupations should be added to the list.”
“To incentivise businesses to adopt more productive technologies, such as Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) and employ more productive workers, levies will be lowered for off-site construction and higher-skilled workers. The Minister for National Development will share more in his Committee of Supply speech. The changes will help support the sectors' transformation and automation. To help defray costs to adopt automation, businesses can tap on grants, such as the Enterprise Development Grant and the Productivity Innovation Project. The changes to our foreign workforce policies aim to strengthen the complementarity between local and foreign workforce at the EP and S Pass level and to spur industry transformation at the Work Permit level. I understand that Mr Cheng Hsing Yao and Ms Janet Ang suggested calibrating our foreign workforce policies further to address persistent shortages in certain sectors. We already do so today. Sectors, such as Construction and Process, have higher foreign worker quotas as we recognise that fewer locals join these sectors. We also exercise flexibilities to support essential services like healthcare and the cleaning of public housing estates. Going forward, we will adopt an even more targeted approach by providing flexibilities to businesses that contribute to our economic priorities and in job roles where there are more pressing manpower needs but fewer locals. To support the growth of businesses that contribute to Singapore's strategic economic priorities, MOM is supporting MTI and participating economic agencies to launch the Manpower for Strategic Economic Priorities, or M-SEP scheme.”
“I understand that SMEs are more constrained in terms of financial resources and many are worried about these moves. I have previously spoken about how we will support SMEs through this transition. They can tap on schemes, such as the Support for Job Redesign under the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG-JR). To reskill existing employees and new hires to take on redesigned job roles, they can also tap on programmes, such as the Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs). There are many of such schemes out there. SMEs will not have to undertake this transformation journey alone. We will walk with them. Let me now move on to the Work Permit changes. At the Work Permit level, migrant workers take on important roles which locals are less keen on doing. Yet, COVID-19 has shown us that it is not sustainable to continue to rely heavily on foreign manpower, especially at the semi-skilled level. Excessive reliance will leave businesses vulnerable to various disruptions. In order for our businesses to survive and thrive, they will need to transform, they will need to increase their productivity and, ultimately, reduce their reliance on Work Permit holders. To support these transformation efforts, we will make further changes to the foreign workforce policies for the Construction and Process sectors from 2024. First, we will reduce the Dependency Ratio Ceilings, or DRCs, for the construction and process sectors from 1:7 to 1:5, to nudge the sectors towards reducing reliance on migrant workers and improving the productivity of workers. That is a reduction from 87.5% to 83.3%. 6.30 pm Second, we will dismantle the Man-Year Entitlement (MYE) framework, to reduce allocation inefficiencies. Third, we will revise the levy structure for both sectors.”
“In that way, the foreigner will not get a pay increase and the Government will get more revenue. But let us just be clear here. We are already increasing S Pass levies. But this is asking us to increase it even more. It does sound like a solution that we can adopt. But why did we not do it? Suppose we load all the cost increases onto levies. The levy will have to be much higher than $650. And these levies will be applied equally to all S Pass holders. The more productive firms that hire high-quality S Pass holders well above the qualifying salary will face the same cost increase as less productive firms who are paying just the bare minimum. Both groups are equally affected. Raising levies makes no distinction or differentiation between them – between the productive ones and the less productive ones. And if all firms have to pay more to the Government, they will have less to pay their workers. Will they still have the ability to incentivise their employees to take up new and bigger job roles as they transform? Members of the House, there are no perfect solutions. I hope that we do not let perfection be the enemy of the good. That is why, after weighing our options carefully, we moved – raising both the qualifying salary and the levies to safeguard good employment outcomes for our locals. We know that the changes to the S Pass framework are not trivial. But we must do what is difficult now, to build a stronger and more inclusive economy for all. With the S Pass moves, businesses that are reliant on low-cost S Pass holders will have to adapt. They will have to redesign their operations to become more productive. They will have to improve the pay and working conditions for these jobs. And because of this, they will be in a stronger position to attract locals.”
“If the locals leave because of the pay discrepancy, the firm may find that it does not have enough quota to retain the S Pass holder at the next renewal. And let us not underestimate the negative impact on productivity of the company when employee morale is poor, or if the company finds itself shorthanded. Finally, what happens if, in spite of all these, employers still unfairly raise the foreigner's pay, without fairly reviewing the pay of locals? We know, on the ground, there will be egregious cases such as these. In such situations, locals can take their grievances to TAFEP. And TAFEP will engage the firm to conduct a proper salary review, because unfair remuneration practices run counter to the Tripartite Guidelines for Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP). So, you can see, there is a whole thought process that the firm will go through. If after all of these, the firm still chooses to retain the S Pass holder, it would be because the value that the S Pass holder brings to their operations more than justifies the higher salary. On the other hand, suppose we left the S Pass qualifying salary untouched at $2,500. Yes, the foreigner may not get the pay raise, but our locals' wages will stagnate as well. The firm can continue to renew the S Pass holder on the lowest salary required, as long as he is willing to accept it and the firm will then have little reason to raise the pay for the other nine locals who are doing the same job. As the Minister for Finance said in his Budget round-up speech, keeping the cost of employing foreign workers low ultimately ends up depressing the wages of local workers. Some locals tell me that they appreciate the need to raise the cost of hiring S Pass holders but asked us why we could not load it all on levies instead.”
“Please let me explain. Take a firm that hires 10 employees – nine locals, one S Pass holder. These employees are all doing the same job, earning the same pay of $2,500. Will the foreigner immediately get a $500 pay increase, just because of the increase in the qualifying salary? No. First, the higher qualifying salary will only apply to EP and S Pass renewals in September 2023. That is about a year and a half from now. I earlier mentioned that this could even stretch out to September 2026, depending on when the S Pass holder is due for renewal. That is about four and a half years away at the extreme. The firm will have ample time to think about alternative options, for instance, finding or training up another local. This is especially so if the foreigner is not bringing in enough value to justify the pay increase. Businesses are, ultimately, profit-driven and they will not just blindly raise costs. Employers have said that it is difficult to find locals in a particularly tight labour market, given the low unemployment rate. But as I had said a few days back, there is still significant untapped supply from both women and seniors outside the workforce. With our population rapidly ageing, we would want to encourage people to work longer when they are able to and should they choose to. My constant exhortation to everyone is to bring them back into the workforce, encourage them, give them an opportunity. If businesses can do more to redesign jobs to make the jobs more flexible, more inclusive, I think they can attract more of these segments of workers. Next, there are quotas at the S Pass level. If the firm insists on giving the S Pass holder a pay increase without fairly reviewing the pay of its locals, it could find itself in a difficult situation.”
“This is a bigger change, compared to the EP salary criteria. So, we will move towards this goal over three steps, to moderate the impact to businesses. As a first step, we will raise the S Pass minimum qualifying salary from the current $2,500 to $3,000 and introduce a higher S Pass qualifying salary for the Financial Services sector at $3,500. These changes will be implemented for new applications from 1 September 2022 and for renewal applications from 1 September 2023. Similar to the EP, the qualifying salary for older S Pass holders will be higher. Thereafter, we will raise the S Pass minimum qualifying salary for new applications in September 2023 and in September 2025. Each increase will apply to renewals a year later. The exact salary values will be announced closer to implementation date, based on the prevailing local APT wages. Just to give a rough sense, based on current local APT wage levels, companies should expect the economy-wide S Pass minimum qualifying salary to be at least $3,150 in September 2023 and to at least $3,300 in September 2025. MOM will also progressively increase the S Pass Tier 1 levy rate from $330 to $650 over three steps, again, in tandem with the S Pass qualifying salary increases. It will be raised to $450 in September 2022 and then to $550 in September 2023 and $650 in September 2025. The Tier 2 levy rate will be maintained at $650. As with the EP, the setting of a clear benchmark will give businesses clarity and predictability on how the S Pass qualifying salary and levies will continue to adjust over time. Mr Chairman, there have been concerns about the increase in qualifying salaries. Locals have asked if their foreign colleagues will, therefore, automatically get a pay raise, at their expense. The short answer is no.”
“We have also received feedback from employers who are concerned about bringing in young, high potential employees. These are big global firms which have international rotation programmes, where they send both foreign and local employees for overseas postings to gain exposure. We will make sure that our EP framework has the flexibility to allow for such rotations. Therefore, we are piloting the Global Rotation Scheme. This scheme will facilitate the entry of high-potential employees from abroad. But, in return, these companies must also post our local Singaporeans abroad on the same leadership development programme. We are starting with a small group of firms and we will expand the scheme once we have worked out the full details. At the S Pass level, foreign workers perform specialised, technical roles. These are skilled jobs with good opportunities, which many of our Polytechnic and ITE graduates have an interest in. We want to continue to ensure that our locals have a level playing field to take up these roles and that S Pass holders are coming in to fill skills gaps and not just because they are cheaper. We also want to spur transformation and job redesign efforts. And this is why we have in place controls for the S Pass, namely qualifying salaries, levies and quotas. As announced, we aim to ensure that S Pass holders are comparable in quality to the top one-third of the local Associate Professionals and Technicians, or APT, workforce. How much a firm is willing to pay is a practical indicator of the quality of the S Pass holder. Thus, we will benchmark the cost of hiring an S Pass holder to the top one-third of local APT wages. We will raise both the S Pass qualifying salary and levies to reach this benchmark.”
“During the 6 July Ministerial Statement, I had already shared that the majority of local PME growth over the last decade went to Singaporeans born in Singapore. I repeated this in Parliament in September and stated that this is the same for PMETs. But Mr Leong Mun Wai persists in drawing these divisions, asking for statistics to be split into original citizens, new citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs). 6.15 pm I have also alluded, at that particular point in time that, as a society, we should not constantly be drawing such lines. Many of our new citizens and PRs share family ties with Singaporeans, or they had studied, worked, contributed and have lived here for some time. They contribute to our strength as a society and as an economy. Singapore is an immigrant nation and openness is one of our society's core strengths that have defined who we are. I urge Mr Leong Mun Wai – have a care – please do not undermine the cohesiveness we have painstakingly built over the years and please ask people who share your point of view to also have a care for the rest of us. Let me emphasise once again – Singapore is and will always be committed to remaining open to foreigners who complement our local workforce and who are able to add vibrancy to Singapore's economy. For the framework, we think deeply, we consult widely because we know that whatever we do, whatever we implement, will have a significant impact on businesses, locals and Singapore. And once we are confident that our proposals are sensible and implementable, we move. That is why we earlier on rolled out schemes, such as Tech@SG and Tech.Pass, to meet strong demand for skilled workers in the tech sector. COMPASS will buttress these schemes to facilitate access to complementary talent.”
“Hence, COMPASS will come into effect for new EP applications from 1 September 2023 and for renewal applications from 1 September 2024. Coming from the private sector myself, I fully understand and appreciate the importance of transparency. Following this announcement, we will publish the COMPASS scoring rubric on MOM's website. We will progressively roll out educational materials and further details on specific criteria. When COMPASS is in place, employers can use the Pre-Assessment Tool to obtain a "balanced scorecard" of how each application fares prior to submission, so that they know what areas they must improve on. In summary, we have designed COMPASS to be balanced and reasonable. For employers, they will find that the system is responsive to industry's needs and easier to navigate with a transparent, predictable and clear framework. It also recognises their efforts to build up a strong local pipeline and maintain a diverse foreign workforce. For our local workforce, they will have greater confidence that the EP holders here are of high calibre and will better complement their teams, and that their employers will also take efforts to develop their local pipeline and to maintain workforce diversity seriously. And, lastly, for Singapore, COMPASS will allow us to remain open to complementary talent in short supply here so that we can grow our frontier industries to bring us into the next stage of growth. Mr Leong Mun Wai continues to assert that the Government's policy is poor, because its statistics are poor. As the Minister for Finance said in his round-up speech, we get the sense that the persistent requests coming from him for more information are red herrings. They are distractions from the key problem at hand.”
“And they would know exactly which areas to improve on and how to respond accordingly, given the transparency, clarity and predictability of COMPASS. SMEs may be concerned about what COMPASS means for them. Will they be disadvantaged relative to bigger firms? We recognise that for smaller firms, their workforce ratios can change significantly and drastically with only a few personnel changes. Hence, for this practical reason, firms with less than 25 PMETs will automatically be scored as "meeting expectations" on firm-related attributes. Some may notice that the firm-related attributes under COMPASS are considered as part of MOM's Fair Consideration Framework, or FCF, Watchlist today. COMPASS builds on our current efforts under the FCF, by applying these considerations upstream, at the point of application. Businesses will have clarity on what these considerations are. Once COMPASS is fully rolled out, the FCF Watchlist will be re-purposed to focus on engaging businesses that score poorly on the firm-related attributes. We will walk with these firms, to help them to strengthen their workforce profile and to adjust to the new framework. Mr Patrick Tay will be reassured that even with the changes to the FCF Watchlist, MOM continues to take fair consideration seriously. The FCF Job Advertising requirement will continue to apply. Employers must practise fair consideration in their selection of candidates and MOM will not hesitate to take action against employers who are found to be discriminatory. We are also working on plans to enshrine existing fair employment guidelines into workplace fairness legislation. We recognise that the introduction of COMPASS is a significant change and companies will need sufficient time to adjust to it.”
“On the other hand, if an application fares "below expectations" in certain foundational criteria, it needs to make up for it by "exceeding expectations" on other foundational criteria or by scoring bonus points. All of the criteria – they are tradeable; none is a veto factor. Let me give you an example. Consider a firm in the IT sector that scores "below expectations" on both support for local employment and diversity. It has a low PMET share relative to its industry peers and is bringing in a candidate whose nationality is already over-represented in its firm. If the EP candidate only "meets expectations" on salary and qualifications and is performing a generic job role, the application will not score enough points to pass. However, if the firm is bringing in a candidate in an area where skills shortages exist, the application could make up for it with bonus points. Alternatively, the firm can hire a candidate from a nationality that improves its diversity and "exceeds expectations" on diversity. This will allow the candidate to pass. In this way, COMPASS incentivises firms with a weaker workforce profile to strengthen their local workforce and diversify, so as not to be disadvantaged. At the same time, it still allows them to access highly complementary EPs in areas where skills shortages exist. Members of the House, let me be clear – COMPASS is not designed to make it harder for businesses to obtain an EP. A good majority of the applications today would not have issues – this demonstrates that our businesses, in general, are progressive and our policies thus far have brought in complementary EP holders. Some firms, however, would need to make adjustments under COMPASS.”
“Let me briefly explain how COMPASS will work. Members can rest assured that all the details will come later. If I could ask Members to refer to the first page of the handout, under the section "How COMPASS works". Under COMPASS, EP applications will be assessed based on four foundational criteria: (a) the candidate's salary relative to local PMET wages in their respective sectors; (b) the candidate's qualifications; (c) the firm's nationality diversity and whether the candidate improves the firm's nationality diversity; and (d) the firm's support for local employment compared to their industry peers. These are termed criteria 1 to 4, or C1 to C4. Beyond these four foundational criteria, we are mindful of two scenarios that warrant special attention. One, where the candidate possesses skills that our workforce has a shortage of, such as AI developers and cybersecurity specialists. Our locals may have such skills, but we do not have sufficient locals to fulfil the demand. Two, if the firm is undertaking ambitious innovation, hub or internationalisation activities in partnership with the Government, in line with our strategic economic priorities. In such cases, it would be in Singapore's interest to allow the firm to bring in this candidate. So, we will accord bonus points for these two areas – these are termed C5 and C6. MOM will work closely with our Tripartite Partners – NTUC and SNEF – and economic agencies to assess industry needs, so that COMPASS is kept current and responsive. An EP application that "meets expectations" on the four foundational criteria would pass COMPASS.”
“There are limits to relying solely on it to select complementary foreign talents. Mr Liang Eng Hwa and Mr Yip Hon Weng would like to know whether other factors could be taken into account to more holistically assess a candidate's complementarity. This is something that MOM has considered and studied carefully for quite some time. We are now ready to introduce a new Complementarity Assessment Framework, called COMPASS. COMPASS is an acronym. The C-O-M-P stands for Complementarity and then the Assessment Framework – COMPASS. COMPASS is a points-based system that considers both individual and firm-related attributes to holistically evaluate an EP applicant's complementarity. It is designed to be a transparent system, so that businesses have clarity and predictability for manpower planning. The NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce recommended a points system for EPs last year. Mr Patrick Tay has also raised this earlier. I am glad that there is strong tripartite support for COMPASS. With the introduction of COMPASS, the future EP framework will comprise two stages. First, applicants must meet the EP qualifying salary. Second, they must also score sufficient points under COMPASS, in order to qualify for an EP. With your permission, Mr Chairman, may I ask the Clerks to distribute a copy of the handout on the COMPASS construct, please?”
“The EP minimum qualifying salary will be revised from $4,500 to $5,000. For the Financial Services sector, which has higher wage norms, this will be revised from $5,000 to $5,500. Given that local PMET wages rise with age, the qualifying salary will also rise with age, to reflect the years of work and experience. To give businesses sufficient time to adjust, these changes will apply to new EP applications from 1 September 2022 and to renewal applications from 1 September 2023. We know, and we empathise, that the labour market for skilled workers is sufficiently tight. So, this latest move is not intended as a tightening measure. Instead, it is part of MOM's regular updates to ensure that our qualifying salary keeps pace with local wage growth, so that foreigners are not coming in just because they are cheaper than local PMETs. As this is a regular updating of our policy, most EP holders will not be impacted by these changes, because, today, they earn well above the qualifying salary. There are, however, some EP holders who do not meet our quality bar. This group will be impacted, but this is how we constantly ensure that we maintain a high-quality EP stock that complements our local workforce. More importantly, we have also set a clear benchmark for the qualifying salary, so that our businesses will have greater transparency, clarity and predictability on how it will be adjusted in future. Businesses should expect regular updating of the qualifying salary to keep pace with local wage trends. We will, of course, consider prevailing economic conditions when making a decision to update the qualifying salary and provide sufficient lead time before each change is effected. While the qualifying salary is simple to understand and easy to administer, it is also a blunt tool.”
“After careful deliberation and extensive consultation with our Tripartite Partners, we are ready to make several important updates to our work pass framework. The updates aim to achieve the following. One, to bring in a higher-quality foreign workforce with specialised skills, networks and expertise to complement our local workforce. Two, to support employers that invest in reskilling their workers and the transfer of capabilities to build a strong Singaporean Core. Three, to ensure diversity in our foreign workforce, because a truly open and connected labour market must also be able to draw the best from all around the world. And four, to drive productivity growth, while keeping our reliance on foreign labour at a sustainable level. Above all, these updates will ensure that Singapore can continue to remain open and connected to the world. 6.00 pm As borders start to reopen and labour demand picks up, I want to lay out the roadmap for these changes, which will be phased in gradually. This is to give businesses the certainty they need to plan ahead as they gear up for growth. Let me start with the Employment Pass, or EP. At the EP level, we need to bring in highly-skilled foreign professionals, as part of a strong team of locals and foreigners, to grow our economy and to create more good jobs. Hence, we do not set quotas or levies on EPs. Instead, we focus on ensuring quality. As announced in the Budget Statement, we will aim to ensure that EP holders are comparable in quality to the top one-third of our local PMET workforce. To do so, we will set a benchmark for the EP qualifying salary based on the top one-third, or the 65th percentile, of local PMET wages. And we will revise our EP qualifying salaries based on this benchmark.”
“More than 174,000 local jobseekers have been placed into jobs and skills opportunities as at end-December 2021. All in all, a total of $11 billion has been allocated to support these initiatives. As announced by the Minister for Finance, we will continue to provide support for businesses and worker segments, such as mature workers. However, moving forward, we will be tailoring our support levels in line with the improved economic and labour market situation and Senior Minister of State Koh Poh Koon will elaborate further in his speech. Ultimately, support for workers will require a whole-of-society effort. I urge all of our businesses and all of our employees to support our efforts to help you do better. Furthermore, the Government will always provide the necessary support for businesses. But businesses must be willing to set aside time and resources to train up the local workforce. And employees must also be willing to reskill and upskill. The support for businesses under the ITMs is complemented by our foreign workforce policies. Foreign workforce policies are key levers to keep our labour market tight and incentivise businesses to transform, move up the value chain and maintain their competitive edge. Let me now move on to our foreign workforce policies. Last September, we debated extensively on the issue of foreign manpower in this House. Parliament affirmed the need for Singapore to stay open and connected to the world and for the Government to continue updating its policy levers to secure the well-being and livelihoods of our people. MOM has been working steadily on a review of our foreign workforce policies. We remain committed to our goals of upgrading our workforce, comprising a strong Singaporean Core and a high-quality and diverse foreign workforce.”
“These provide very detailed, job-level insights to help businesses and workers prepare for future jobs and skills. To support our scale-up of these programmes, I set up the Jobs Taskforce in September last year to derive strategies to increase the placements of local workers into our key sectors, such as ICT, Manufacturing and Financial Services. For example, our Career Conversion Programmes, or CCPs, support employers to reskill jobseekers and workers for in-demand job roles. They provide targeted support to workers whose job roles might be at greater risk of redundancy. One such individual is Mr Cheng Kim Ann, a 30-year-old who previously worked on aircraft maintenance. He had just completed his Degree in Mechanical Engineering and wanted to seek out opportunities in the aerospace sector when COVID-19 hit. He re-evaluated his career options and came across a job opening as a manufacturing and equipment engineer with Micron Technology. To help Mr Cheng assimilate into his role, the company put him on the Career Conversion Programme for the Electronics Sector in November 2020. During the three-month programme, Mr Cheng was introduced to the processes in the semiconductor industry which he had to apply in his new job role. Coupled with the on-the-job training provided by the company, Mr Cheng quickly picked up new skills required for the industry and moved on to learning more advanced skills. During the pandemic, the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package and the Jobs Growth Incentive were introduced as extraordinary measures to preserve human capital and expand local hiring. All these initiatives helped to cushion the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market and provided much-needed relief for the businesses to meet their manpower needs.”
“This will be further covered by Senior Minister of State Koh Poh Koon later on in his speech. Let me start by sharing how we intend to upgrade the capabilities of locals and complementarity of foreigners. I will spend the bulk of the speech today elaborating on this segment. As mentioned, Senior Ministers of State Koh Poh Koon and Zaqy Mohamad and Minister of State Gan Siow Huang will elaborate further on our other two focus areas. Structural shifts in the economy mean new growth opportunities for our businesses and workers. As highlighted in the cuts by Mr Desmond Choo and Mr Dennis Tan, some of the shifts include the greening and digitalisation of our economy. The green economy is an area of growth that we are taking very seriously. As Minister Gan Kim Yong shared earlier, we have developed a whole-of-Government green economy strategy which looks into the jobs and skills that will be transformed and created as a result of the green transition. It is thus important that our workers are equipped with the necessary skillsets to thrive in this fast-changing environment. Helping our businesses to transform and preparing our workers for the future of work have been longstanding priorities for this Government. Since 2016, we have rolled out Industry Transformation Maps, or ITMs, for 23 sectors to chart their transformation journey. As Minister Gan Kim Yong has shared, the Government is working closely with industry stakeholders, unions and academia to update our ITMs to address emerging trends and opportunities. In 2021, we announced that Jobs Transformation Maps (JTMs) would be launched to map out the impact of technology and digitalisation on individual jobs over the medium term.”
“If we get this with surgical precision and the right timing – in Chinese, it is 天时地利人和 – Singapore will be a top global city brimming with opportunities for our businesses and our people. Against this backdrop, MOM's priorities will focus on the three "Up"s: Upgrade, Uplift and Uphold. The first focus is to upgrade the capabilities of locals and the complementarity of foreigners. We will strengthen support for locals so that they are equipped with skillsets to take on jobs of the future. Through our foreign workforce policies, we will ensure our businesses have access to the complementary manpower that they need. For our growth to be sustainable, we must ensure every Singaporean worker benefits from Singapore's growth and no one is left behind. Hence, our second focus is to uplift our vulnerable workers and mature workers. We will implement the recommendations from the Tripartite Work Group on Lower-Wage Workers and double down on our efforts to uplift these workers. Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad will elaborate more in his speech. Senior Minister of State Koh Poh Koon will share our approach to uplifting self-employed persons and strengthening support for mature workers. Finally, every one of us desires a fair opportunity to contribute and to thrive at work, which brings me to our third focus – to uphold inclusive and progressive practices at the workplace. We will continue to support our workforce to meet caregiving needs at home, support their mental health and well-being. Minister of State Gan Siow Huang will elaborate more in her speech. And we will continue with efforts to transform the migrant worker ecosystem to improve their physical, social and mental well-being.”
“Mr Chairman, I thank the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) Members of Parliament and the others who spoke in support of our workers and our businesses. Over the past two years of battling COVID-19, our manpower policies had focused on shoring up local employment and keeping foreign workforce policies responsive. We supported businesses in hiring and investing in the skills of a wider pool of jobseekers and helped many jobseekers move into new opportunities. Through updated work pass requirements, we also ensured local-foreign complementarity and spurred business transformation. These efforts helped mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and facilitated the recovery of our economy. Despite a slight dip in 2020, the median gross monthly income of residents has risen to above pre-COVID-19 levels. Resident unemployment rate has come down from the high of 4.8% to 3.2% today. Given the Ukraine war, we are cautiously optimistic that the unemployment rate will fall back to pre-COVID-19 levels in the months ahead. To capture the opportunities created by a recovering global economy, businesses are starting to increase their hiring. For the full year 2021, total employment saw an encouraging rebound of 40,800, close to 41,000. We want to provide the necessary support and incentives to restructure our workforce so that we can emerge stronger. We want to build an inclusive and comprehensive labour market, where businesses can access the manpower needed for their growth and where continued growth leads to a more equitable and progressive society. The recovering economy provides a better and firmer footing to do so now.”
“Mr Chairman, I will take the first question and Minister Gan will take the subsequent question. The first point that Mr Saktiandi Supaat raised, it overlaps the auspices of MOM and MTI. There is significant focus on expanding the Continuing Education and Training (CET) component, even for mid-career workers. Today, under the WSG, we have invested significant resources in developing the Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs). The precursor was the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP) and we have now morphed it into the CCPs. We are very focused on making sure that we work with companies, we walk with companies, helping them to not just redesign skillsets as to what is necessary for them to pivot and to transform, but on top of that, we have our very close relationship with our tripartite partners. The Finance Minister had also announced that we will be significantly beefing up the Company Training Committees (CTCs). NTUC drives that part of it, together, in terms of working, reskilling and also training as well. These are just two examples. There will be other programmes, perhaps, if I can beg Member's indulgence to stay for the MOM Committee of Supply debate later. You will see the whole plethora of programmes that we have available.”
“To Assoc Prof Lim's point for on-demand consultancy productivity, today, all our SMEs are welcome to drop into any of our SME Centres or Connect with ESG. On an individualised basis, as I have said, we try to not just have bespoke advice for the larger enterprises but, to the extent that is possible, we try to cater and tailor it to SMEs. You can appreciate the fact that SMEs come from a very wide diaspora of different businesses, different sectors, different industries. So, in terms of trying to help them, to reach them, there is not a one-size-fits-all perspective. With regard to public-private partnership, we have started PACT, as I have said earlier on. One of the examples that we have done is a company called Excelpoint Technology. I do not have all the details at this particular point in time to share, but I am happy to answer it separately. Importantly, we welcome this type of public-private partnership. If the hon Member Assoc Prof Lim can envisage that there are more of these partners, earlier on, towards the end of my speech, I have constantly encouraged SMEs to take that first step. If there are partners who are willing to partner us to expand the range of service offerings for our own local enterprises, to bring them, to groom them, to develop them into large local enterprises and eventually, to become a Singapore global enterprise, I think we would very much welcome them. We are all after the same thing in this aspect. What we are trying to do is to grow Singapore enterprises into large local enterprises (LLEs), put them on the world map and, at the same time, offer our Singaporean employees, our Singapore Core, a chance at being able to go global. I hope that gives him the reassurance.”
“I thank the hon Member Mr Leon Perera for his supplementary question. Indeed, that is one of the considerations that we are also considering. As I have shared earlier on, EMA is conducting a review in terms of how we can further strengthen the framework and also to ensure that in a very unprecedented crisis, such as this, what other measures will we be able to leverage on to support our general population and also many of the SMEs at large. 11.02 am”