ENGLISH PROFICIENCY FOR FOREIGN WORKERS

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY FOR FOREIGN WORKERS

46.

Mrs Mildred Tan asked the Minister for Manpower in light of the recent announcement of a lighter levy for skilled foreign workers in the service industry who have proficiency in English, whether his Ministry will consider (i) the language abilities of all foreign nationals when granting them work permits; and (ii) conducting trainings or language tests for these workers to ensure a minimum standard of English for effective communication.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Companies that hire work permit holders come from a diverse range of industries from hotels to electronics manufacturing to ship-building to construction. The skill sets that are required can, therefore, differ quite widely from industry to industry. A construction work permit holder at a worksite will need certain basic skills, eg, plastering but will generally not be required to meet and interact with customers in order to perform his job well. On the other hand, services work permit holders working in, for example, hotels would likely be required to have some interaction with customers on a daily basis.

To render work permit holders from the hotel, retail and food and beverage (F&B) industries more effective on their jobs, MOM has decided to introduce English proficiency as a new criterion to qualify for skilled levy. This is part of the overall strategy to raise our workforce skill and productivity level.

We therefore encourage employers of the relevant industries to proactively equip their workers with the basic English language proficiency to qualify for skilled levy. However, employers will still be able to retain those of their foreign workers who are unable to acquire the level of proficiency but at higher levy for unskilled workers.

We do not see yet a need to introduce an English language proficiency criterion for the other industries. However, MOM will review the need for language proficiency from time to time to improve the quality of our foreign workforce.

MOM will be announcing the details of the English language proficiency test for work permit holders in the hotel, retail and F&B industries shortly. To give work permit holders sufficient time to attempt the test, the test will be rolled out some time before the implementation of the English language proficiency requirement in the third quarter. Companies that wish to upgrade their workers’ language skills can tap on courses that are already available in the market. These include the Service English for Retail Professionals Programme conducted by the Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) Institute of Learning, and the English language course for foreign workers at the Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC).