Inflow of Foreign Workers

Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry would consider calibrating the flow of foreign manpower into Singapore in accordance with the ability of our public infrastructure to cope with such an inflow and, if so, how does the Government carry out this calibration exercise.

The Minister of State for Manpower (BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin) (for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, Sir, the capacity of a public infrastructure is a key consideration when planning for the growth of our overall workforce. We are therefore seeking to moderate the growth of the foreign workforce at no higher than one-third over the long term. Besides the social and economic reasons for this target, which I have explained yesterday, there are also real physical and infrastructural limits that we do need to take into account.

The Government has already introduced various measures to moderate the inflow of foreign manpower, in particular, at the Work Permit and S Pass levels. We have announced the schedule of Foreign Worker Levy increases which began from July 2010 and will continue until July 2013. The increases in levies and other measures such as the phased tightening of levy tiers send a clear signal to companies to avoid growing our reliance on foreign workers and instead invest in productivity improvements so that they can remain more competitive in the long run. The Government is providing full support for this productivity effort. At the Employment Pass (EP) level, qualifying salaries were raised in July 2011. From January 2012, EP applicants will be subjected to more stringent criteria including better educational qualifications and higher qualifying salaries.

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Although managing the inflow of foreign workers has to remain a finely balanced exercise, our key objective must be to ensure that our economy remains diversified and competitive, and thus is able to provide good jobs for Singaporeans. At the same time, the Government is ramping up our public infrastructure development plans to meet the needs of a growing population.

Mr Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah): I would like to thank the Minister of State for his response to my question. Just one clarification. We all appreciate that Singapore needs to remain open and vibrant in order to be a global city. However, one concern is that when a foreigner comes and works in Singapore, and he or she enjoys it, then, the family comes also. While we should obviously be open to this, is the Ministry of Manpower looking at, after someone comes and settles here, whether there is sufficient infrastructural support in transport, in health services, to accommodate the families coming also?

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: Mr Speaker, that is indeed the idea. Going forward, we do need to be cognisant of the overall demands. Clearly, not every foreign worker and person on Employment Pass who comes here, will bring the family, but that is something that we do have to bear in mind. Going forward, looking at the demands placed on our infrastructure would be something we need to consider.