Securing Singaporeans' Jobs and Livelihoods, and Foreign Talent Policy

Debate resumed.

6.31 pm

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Tan See Leng): Mr Speaker, Sir, a debate on jobs should be taken seriously. It is more than a hashtag. The success, livelihoods and well-being of millions of our fellow Singaporeans are at stake. I had hoped that the PSP would share this understanding. Instead, the PSP's approach has disappointed me.

First, the PSP continues to equivocate about FTAs, claiming it does not have enough information. What further information does the PSP need? We have explained that all foreigners have to meet the same work pass criteria.

The PSP has asked for data on ICTs over the years because the data cited was for 2020 – a crisis year. We did not go into these details further because the trends were similar. But since the PSP persists in this line of inquiry, here are the numbers over the last five years.

The total number of ICTs in 2020 was 4,200. This is overall. In 2019, it was 4,400. In 2018, 3,200. In 2017, 2,600. And in 2016, 2,100.

The total number of Indian ICTs in 2020 was 500. In 2019, 600. In 2018, 400. In 2017, 400. And in 2016, 300.

These numbers have been consistently low. So, I would ask the PSP again, what further information does it need? Given the racial undertones on this issue, and this is acknowledged by all Members of the House, the PSP's equivocation is not only misleading but is also dangerous.

Second, the PSP has fielded a slew of data requests via Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and it has made a sweeping statement that there is no credibility in any of our statements because we have not released all of the data it has asked for. It has equivocated that it cannot provide answers because it has no information.

Let me be very clear. When it comes to data on our local workforce, we publish it regularly at a high level of granularity and this is in line with international standards. But it seems the PSP is not aware of this. In the 26 July Parliamentary sitting, the PSP filed a PQ asking for the annual breakdown numbers of local PMEs from 2005 to 2020. Parliamentary rules made it clear that a PQ should not ask for information that is already publicly available. Nevertheless, in my reply to Ms Hazel Poa, I told her where to look for such data. I also told her that the data stretches back to 1991 on the MOM's website, if she was interested. Notably, I have not heard the PSP use any of the data we have provided in its arguments.

And instead of being bogged down by these unhelpful distractions, I want to speak about the anxieties of Singaporeans, workers and business owners alike. I acknowledge these anxieties – they are present, but they are not just present in Singapore alone. They are present all around the world.

I oppose the PSP’s Motion because it does not provide the solutions that Singaporeans anxious about jobs and competition seek. The way to address Singaporeans’ anxieties about jobs and competition in a fast-changing economy, is to continue to invest heavily in developing our local workforce and ensure that foreigners complement, rather than displace, our locals.

Minister Lawrence Wong has already shared some important perspectives on our strategy. I will share some of the facts and data that are relevant.

Turning, first, to the jobs landscape. The PSP fixates on the increase in the number of foreign PMETs to argue that locals have been displaced and lost out. It has painted a picture of widespread displacement based on the anecdotes it has heard. But how have local PMETs actually fared? MOM publishes this data regularly at fine granularity but the PSP has not made any mention of this. So, let me walk you through the numbers.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, Sir, may I display some slides on the LED screens?

Mr Speaker Mr Speaker: Yes, please. [Slides were shown to hon Members. Please refer to Annex 2.]

First, look at the local PMET employment. The PSP harps on the number of foreign PMETs. This is depicted by the orange bars. But the number of local PMET jobs, which is depicted by the blue bars, is significantly higher.

Over the past decade, there was an increase of 110,000 Employment Pass (EP) and S Pass holders, but local PMETs increased by 300,000. This is the case even if you look at some of the sub-sectors that hire more EPs – Finance, Infocomm and Professional Services. Over the past decade, EP and S Pass holders in these sub-sectors increased by 40,000, but local PMETs increased by almost 155,000 – almost four times. This goes to show that competition between locals and foreigners is not a zero-sum game.

The PSP has asked whether most of the local job creation went to PRs rather than Singaporeans. During the 6 July Ministerial Statement, I have already shared that the majority of local PME growth over the last decade went to Singaporeans born in Singapore. This is the same for PMETs.

Some other data points we published should make it clear that Singaporeans have benefited. First, MOM regularly publishes unemployment rates for PRs and citizens. The unemployment rate of citizens has remained stable and low.

Secondly, the PR population has also remained stable over the past decade, at around half a million. So, it cannot be the case that most of the employment growth went to PRs. But, more fundamentally, as a society, I do not think we should be drawing lines between Singapore Citizens and PRs. Many of our PRs either share family ties with Singaporeans or have studied, worked or lived here for some time. They contribute to our strengths as a society and our economy. Singapore is an immigrant nation and openness is one of our society's core strengths that have defined who we are.

The second point on local PMET unemployment. Looking at the chart shown, outside of crises, it has generally remained at 3% or lower. Few countries have achieved unemployment rates as low as this. I think we are one of the lowest in the world, one of the bottom three lowest in terms of these statistics in the world.

Long-term unemployment rate, referring to those who were looking for a job for at least 25 weeks, or about six months, is even lower at below 1%. The increase in foreign PMETs has not caused our unemployment rate to rise.

Third, the number of PMET job vacancies. It has been on an upward trend since 2010 and has been hovering around 30,000 over the past five years. These vacancies are spread across various sectors. There are 4,300 unfilled PMET jobs in Infocomm, 4,100 unfilled PMET jobs in Finance, 2,700 unfilled PMET jobs in Professional Services. This is just to name a few.

If every additional foreigner results in one less opportunity for a local, why are there still so many unfilled vacancies? Surely, these vacancies should have long been filled.

Finally, Members of the House, median local PMET wages. It has risen from $4,600 in 2010 to $6,300 in 2020. This represents a total increase of 38%. In real terms, it translates to a 21% increase.

To sum up, looking at the data, and I have put it in a table for everyone to see, the data shows us that while the number of foreign PMETs has increased, we saw: one, an even larger increase in local PMET employment; two, low local PMET unemployment; three, a growing number of PMET job vacancies; and four, growing local PMET wages.

In fact, the proportion of our workforce in PMET jobs is amongst the highest in the world at almost 60%, doubling up from 30% in the early 1990s. This is a very different picture from the dire situation that the PSP has portrayed. If you hear Mr Leong Mun Wai, you would have thought that it has been midnight in Singapore for the past 30 years.

Nevertheless, while the vast majority of local PMETs have experienced positive outcomes, we must not neglect the lived experiences of the minority who have not. Their experiences are equally valid too. It is not just the PSP who talks to Singaporeans. I meet them, too, and I hear their concerns, and I feel their angst. One group, in particular, concerns me – our older local PMETs. They have contributed to society and they are still able and willing to work. Yet, some amongst them have lost their jobs. When this happens, it can be devastating. It feels like a part of their identity is lost. Even for those who are still employed, seeing others around their age lose their jobs may cause them to be demoralised and feel anxious.

I understand the pain. But I must point out that this is happening not because of increased competition from foreigners, but also from deeper, structural trends.

If you look at this chart, the unemployment rate amongst older local PMETs started diverging from the overall rate, from 2015 onwards. I remember this year particularly well because it was the year I attended the World Economic Forum. At that time, big data was top of the agenda. That was the year that big data and machine learning hit the mass market very rapidly. Companies were racing to build up digital teams. It created new roles which required new skills sets, while disrupting some existing roles and skills. Against this backdrop, our older PMETs faced competition, not so much from foreigners, but from technology and, possibly, also from younger Singaporeans who had the necessary skills.

We saw these trends happening and we rolled out SkillsFuture in January 2016. We knew that lifelong learning had to become the norm, so that Singaporeans could pivot to new opportunities. And we built on this foundation year after year.

But the Government's efforts are only half the story. What really makes the difference is the spirit of older Singaporeans, their willingness to remain open to new possibilities.

Take Mr Arnold Lim, who spent 25 years in the banking industry and was retrenched at the age of 50. After a year of effort to return to the banking industry, he decided to join PulseSecure, an IT firm.

The learning curve was steep for him, given his lack of IT experience. PulseSecure hired him through the Web Developer Career Conversion Programme (CCP), which allowed him to pick up new technical skills and gain relevant on-the-job experience. Mr Lim subsequently took on additional IT certifications on his own accord. In his own words, "After 50 is a new start for me."

I have spoken at length about unemployment. But various Members of the House have pointed out that this may not reveal the full picture of underemployment and asked if the Government is monitoring this.

There are two different concepts of underemployment.

One is time-related, where the worker would like to work for longer hours but is unable to find a job that allows him to do so. This is well-defined and, internationally, there are ways to measure this. MOM regularly tracks and publishes resident time-related underemployment and this can be found in MOM's Labour Force Survey.

The resident time-related underemployment rate has averaged 3.6% over the past 10 years. Although the resident time-related underemployment rate rose to 4.1% in 2020 due to COVID-19, it still remains relatively low.

The other type of underemployment is skills-related, when the worker believes that his current job does not fully utilise his skills. This is more subjective and this is what I think a few Members have alluded to earlier on. But this is more subjective as there is, as yet, no internationally accepted standard for measuring this.

MOM is part of a working group led by the International Labour Organization, or ILO, to develop suitable methodologies to relate an individual's occupation to their skill and educational level.

These are discussions involving professional labour market statisticians. So, while I appreciate the interest of Members for MOM to magically provide a KPI for skills-related underemployment, the fact that there is at the ILO a working group of statisticians studying how this should be measured, should highlight that this is not a simple matter.

In the meantime, we regularly track and publish the number of self-employed persons, or SEPs.

The graph here shows the share of our local workforce who are SEPs since 2010. They include private hire car drivers, taxi drivers, real estate agents and hawkers, who are not employed by a company.

The proportion of SEPs has remained stable at between 8% and 10% over the past two decades, although we did see an uptick during COVID-19.

Gig workers are defined as SEPs who use online matching platforms. The top occupation of gig workers is private hire car drivers on online matching platforms like Grab or Gojek. Around 1.5% of our local workforce is working in this particular occupation.

In response to a survey by MOM, 70% of them said they do this on a preferred basis because they would like the flexibility and also the freedom of time. Grab's own survey echoed this. More than 70% of their private hire car drivers have chosen to take up work via Grab because of the flexibility of time.

For the 30% who wish to transit to regular employment, they can tap on our skills training and employment facilitation services, including career advisory counselling offered by WSG and e2i.

As mentioned by Prime Minister Lee during the 2021 National Day Rally, MOM will form an advisory committee to propose recommendations to improve protection for this group.

Ultimately, the best thing we can do for our locals is to continually invest in them to help them adapt and compete. But it seems the PSP would want us to take a more effortless route and simply target the 400,000 foreign PMETs they say are here.

In fact, as Mr Leong Mun Wai noted, the number of EP and S Pass holders has fallen to 350,000. How much lower does he want it to go? Three hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? Or maybe zero?

Ms Hazel Poa has painted a simple narrative that if we keep labour supply tight, it will contribute to productivity improvements and a higher wage growth for Singaporeans. But at a certain point, a tight labour market can also lose us opportunities and the ability to internationalise. This can cost us jobs and wage growth in the long run. It is not such a simple linear relationship.

Let us not talk about rebalancing abstractly. Let us focus instead on the PSP's policy suggestions.

Can the PSP explain how all of this will not dampen Singapore's attractiveness to foreign investors and cause poorer outcomes for the vast majority?

As a small country that is devoid of any natural resources, there are severe consequences if we turn inwards, lose our lustre as a regional hub and cause companies to leave our shores and take the jobs with them.

I speak to many businesses, trade associations and chambers. A common thread in their feedback is the difficulty of finding enough locals with the right skills and this has hampered their expansion plans. Some of them are giving up and turning to hiring foreigners based in their home country. After all, people can now work from anywhere.

The 10 biggest MNCs in Singapore alone create around 30,000 local PMET jobs. If they decide to leave, we would not be talking about recouping tens of thousands of jobs but about losing more of them instead.

Members might also know that Singapore has already fallen from first to fifth in the Institute for Management Development's, or IMD's, 2021 World Competitiveness Ranking.

This was partly due to COVID-19 as our small economy was more affected by the global slowdown than larger ones. In particular, we have slid in our openness towards global trade and talent in rankings regarding "attitudes towards globalisation", "availability of skilled labour" and "immigration laws preventing companies from hiring foreign labour".

I will say this plainly to Mr Leong Mun Wai. What he and his party spew, attacking CECA and FTAs and foreigners in general, has had an effect on IMD's assessment and on business sentiments, both here and overseas. Investors watch and wonder how many other Singaporeans feel this way. Has Singapore become less welcoming of foreign investments and of global talent?

Why do you think we are taking this issue so seriously? In July, Minister Ong Ye Kung and I made Ministerial Statements. We decided to confront Mr Leong Mun Wai openly. In August, the Prime Minister addressed the issue again in his National Day Rally speech. And now, in this debate, three Ministers have spoken thus far, myself for the second time.

Do Mr Leong Mun Wai and his party think Singapore will forever be attractive to investors? Is there some magic in our water that draws global multinationals here and that all this happens spontaneously?

Mr Speaker, Sir, we have made this happen and we will continue to make it happen.

You have heard Minister Lawrence Wong recall how Mr Lee Kuan Yew went so far as to pay special attention to how the road leading from Changi Airport to the city looked.

Day in, day out, many Government agencies continue to work hard to make sure that we remain safe and attractive to investors so that they come here, they sink billions here, erect plants, labs, studios, facilities here, create jobs and livelihoods for Singaporeans, including our children, so that they can do jobs of the future and not of the past.

As a result of this unremitting work over the last 60 years, Singapore remains a competitive economy, as proven by our pipeline of investments even during the pandemic.

However, please note. Other economies are also upping their ante. We cannot afford to take our economic competitiveness for granted. The attitudes that PSP is promoting are detrimental to how others perceive our openness. Mr Leong Mun Wai, please, have a care.

I know that, by and large, Singaporeans are pragmatic and they understand that we need to remain open to global talents and stay connected. Some of them feel frustrated when they see a foreigner being hired, though he may not be able to do the job as well as a Singaporean, or simply because he has links with the hiring manager.

We know these sorts of things happen. That is why when it comes to our foreign workforce policies, we constantly adjust them to ensure that foreigners complement, and not displace, our locals. We strengthen our levers against discriminatory practices.

Yet, in spite of our work, the PSP continues to criticise our foreign workforce policies as being too lax. Today, we hear some ideas from them. They characterised our "foreign talent policy" as a conduit for quick immigration and a source of cheap labour and claimed that the qualifying salaries of S Passes and EPs are too low. They said that there is an unfair wage competition because employers do not have to pay the 17% CPF contribution for foreigners.

They have asked us to raise the EP qualifying salary to $10,000 and the S Pass qualifying salary to $4,500. They have asked us to impose a $1,200 EP levy, to impose a 25% to 30% cap on work pass holders and PRs and to impose a hard nationality cap of 10% in each firm.

Mr Leong Mun Wai also laments that we do not have enough Singaporeans in leadership positions and elsewhere, he has suggested greater protection for top leadership roles.

Let me take each point in turn.

First, on Mr Leong Mun Wai's claim that our qualifying salaries are too low and that there is unfair wage competition. I wonder whether Mr Leong is aware that the numbers he cited are the minimum qualifying salaries for EP and S Pass holders at the youngest ages. Does he know that our qualifying salaries rise with age to maintain a level playing field for our mature PMETs? For example, the EP qualifying salary for those in their 40s is around double the minimum qualifying salary.

I would like to ask: has the PSP actually consulted businesses on what they think of our current policy?

Many businesses, including SMEs, are already crying out that they are not able to access the foreign PMETs that they need. We listen to them, we engage them, we help them transform and we help them find suitable Singaporeans. But, ultimately, we explain to them why we have to hold the line.

Mr Leong Mun Wai has also repeated the point that foreign EP holders are cheaper to hire than locals because their employers do not make CPF contributions.

I have already clarified this point on 6 July but let me do so again. The CPF is set aside for our retirement needs and it can also be used for housing. Foreign PMETs are not working in Singapore on a permanent basis and we are not responsible for their retirement adequacy or their home ownership needs. It does not make sense for us to extend the CPF coverage and benefits to them.

I think everyone in this House knows the interest rate that we pay on our CPF contributions. I would not elaborate further. Fundamentally, our CPF system is designed to benefit our resident workers, not to help attract or deter foreigners.

So, how do we maintain a level playing field? When reviewing the qualifying salary to maintain a level playing field, we take into account the CPF contributions as part of the cost to employers.

Ms Hazel Poa also highlighted the issue of false salary declarations and kickbacks as ways for employers to get around our work pass framework.

MOM takes firm measures to safeguard the integrity of the work pass framework. False declarations of any sorts are an offence under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA). It carries a fine of up to $20,000, up to two years' imprisonment or both.

The fact that Ms Hazel Poa is aware of this means she is also aware that MOM has been enforcing this and publicising our efforts to stamp out these illegal practices. At the same time, the PSP's solution is to raise the salary criteria for EP and S Pass holders significantly. Does the PSP think that this underlying problem will get better with their suggestion?

Second, imposing, a levy of $1,200 on all EP holders. This is easy enough for the Government to do. It also generates revenue. So, why do we not go down this route? Because at the EP level, our primary focus is on regulating quality. A levy would have the opposite effect. Employers have finite budgets for manpower.

Suppose an employer has set aside $10,000 a month for a new EP hire, a levy of $1,200 effectively reduces his budget to $8,800. This immediately narrows the pool of EP candidates from those willing to consider a salary of $10,000 and below to those willing to consider a salary of $8,800 and below. How would this benefit the employer or his Singaporean employees if the intention is to seek the best talents available?

We would also be sending contradictory signals if we say that we welcome high-calibre global professionals to Singapore on the one hand and impose a levy on them on the other. So, instead of a levy, we focus on regulating quality through the EP salary criterion and this sets a high bar that EP holders must reach to work in Singapore and it raises their quality over time.

Third, imposing a 25% to 30% cap on work pass holders and Permanent Residents in the long run. First, I think PSP should know that we have quotas at the S Pass level. We have already been reducing the S Pass Sub-Dependency Ratio Ceiling over the past decade for the services sector. The services sector is currently at 10%, down from 25%, and there are ongoing cuts still taking place in all the other sectors.

I have also explained why we do not set quotas at the EP level because there is fierce competition for global talent and worldwide shortages in areas, such as technology and digital skills. And doing so would send the wrong signal that we are not welcoming to such talent. Let me give a concrete example.

Take, for example, infrastructure financing. Since the 2000s, MAS has been promoting this because there is a huge infrastructure opportunity in Asia in the yawning financing gap. However, working in this area requires significant expertise, given the complex risk profile of infrastructure projects. In the early days, we did not have enough local talent to work in this area. Global banks, especially Japanese and European Banks, were the most active players in the initial phase and had the talent and the expertise. Mizuho Bank was one such bank that chose to set up a project financing team in Singapore. In 2003, Singaporeans accounted for 40% of its project financing team. Now, Singaporeans occupy 70% of a much larger office.

If we have imposed the quotas up front, I doubt this would have happened.

If PSP insists on the 30% quota, then I would like to ask, would you turn away a company that creates 69 high-end jobs for locals because it needs 31 foreigners from abroad? If PSP's prevailing assumption is that less foreigners means more jobs for locals, what would stop it from lowering this quota further to 20% or 10% or 0%?

Mr Leong Mun Wai had previously suggested that it is not good enough for Singaporeans to make up 70% of the workforce in the financial sector, but that it should be even higher at 80% or 90%. In which case, how do we remain and maintain our status as an International Financial Centre?

Fourth, imposing a hard nationality cap of 10% within each firm. Once you stack up a 30% cap on top of another 10% cap, it becomes clear that Mr Leong Mun Wai's policy can only make the environment so hostile that very few foreign investors will consider Singapore when building any business. Maybe no foreign investor will consider. To use the example of Mizuho Bank, the effect of Mr Leong's proposal is to tell a Japanese bank that only 10% of their workers can be Japanese nationals.

Nevertheless, as I have shared in my 6 July Ministerial Statement, we understand the tensions that can arise when a foreign nationality dominates and we have levers today to address this. The Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) watchlist identifies firms with high concentration of a single nationality. Their work pass applications are scrutinised for potential discriminatory hiring and the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) engages them.

And as I had also shared, we are exploring further refinements to our EP framework to help us achieve our objectives of a strong Singaporean Core complemented by a diverse foreign workforce.

Finally, on Mr Leong Mun Wai's calls to ring-fence positions in top management for Singaporeans. Let me state simply that we helped Singaporeans rise to the top, not by protecting them, but by enabling them. Many companies have programmes in place to groom talent for leadership positions. Take Asia Pacific Breweries, for example. Their staff can participate in their Management Team and Beyond Fast Track programme, be rotated into positions globally and expand their skill sets.

When companies first set up here, it is understandable that they will need to bring in many of their senior management to oversee the business here. If we protect the top management jobs for Singaporeans alone and companies decide not to invest here because of that, we would lose good jobs for our locals and the opportunity for them to take on the higher level positions in the future would also diminish. I worry that the PSP is calling for policies that are not only short-sighted but protectionist and this will do grave harm to Singaporeans.

I would also like to address Mr Pritam Singh's idea of a time-limited EP to facilitate skills transfer. I should point out to Mr Singh that no work pass is issued indefinitely. At the point of renewal, employers must meet our prevailing criteria. The idea of a skills transfer requirement sounds good in theory but, in practice, it is not as straightforward to implement. The process of skills transfer is rarely linear or one-to-one. So, I do not think it makes sense for MOM to be the judge to set a fixed duration and force employers to let go of experienced work pass holders once their fixed term is up.

I want to finally address our efforts to stamp out discrimination. Minister Lawrence Wong touched on the anti-discrimination legislation earlier, but I would like to address the PSP's claim that because FCF was introduced in 2014, fair consideration for our locals was not a priority before that. In fact, the tripartite partners have been issuing guidelines on fair employment practices over the past two decades, having introduced the tripartite guidelines on non-discriminatory job advertisements as early as 1999.

In 2002, we added the Code of Responsible Employment Practices.

In 2006, we set up the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP).

In 2007, we issued the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP).

In 2011, we enhanced the TGFEP to include guidelines on hiring and developing a Singaporean Core.

In 2014, the introduction of the FCF took these efforts one step further by introducing the job advertising requirement and we have been progressively strengthening the FCF ever since. We introduced the FCF watchlist in 2016, as a systematic framework for engaging firms, with outlier, workforce profiles and scrutinising them for potential discrimination.

In 2020, we strengthened the penalties against firms found to have discriminatory hiring practices. In the same year, we extended the coverage of the FCF job advertising requirement to S Passes and doubled the minimum job advertising period from 14 to 28 days.

Ensuring responsible and fair employment practices has always been our priority. At the National Day Rally 2021 recently, Prime Minister Lee announced we are taking the next step of strengthening our enforcement against workplace discrimination through legislation. Members of the House, this is a major step, both philosophically and legally. This will cover discrimination on the grounds of nationality, in addition to other kinds of discrimination covered by the TGFEP and it sends a clear signal that discrimination of any kind is not tolerated.

When you consider all the policies we have put in place, it is quite clear that we are providing strong support for the employment of local PMETs. Even Ms He Ting Ru has noticed and acknowledged our plans to legislate TAFEP guidelines.

Indeed, many companies tell us that they prefer to hire locals over foreigners, so long as they can find the skill sets here. Even if there is initially a shortage of skills, many are willing to develop local talent to fill these roles. Take, for example, PayPal. When it first started, it had to rely more heavily on global talent for specialised technical skills and more senior roles that required managing regional teams. However, PayPal committed to hire and train 150 Singaporeans across tech and business roles over three years.

I acknowledge: there will always be more work to be done. I have said before in my past Statements that we are always a work-in-progress because we continue to refine and tweak and improve. We will always continuously refine our policies to secure the well-being and the livelihoods of Singaporeans in a post-pandemic world.

But, Members of the House, we must not discard the principles that have worked well for us. Mr Speaker, Sir, let me now say a few words in Mandarin and I will try to keep it short.

( In Mandarin ) : [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Recently, the President of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Roland Ng, wrote in a Lianhe Zaobao column that, “The business community agrees with the Government that it is important to secure good employment opportunities and outcomes for locals. However, we also recognise the value of having high-quality foreign workers who can complement the local workforce, help boost the economy, and create a win-win situation.”

I fully agree with Mr Roland Ng. The key objective of Singapore's economic policy is to create good job opportunities for our people, thereby improving and uplifting the overall standard of living. The Government’s objective has not changed: we want to help Singaporeans fulfil their potential, seize opportunities, and improve productivity.

As our economy grows and transforms, many businesses have brought in foreign professionals to complement the local workforce. This has resulted in stiffer competition for local workers. Some groups of workers would inevitably feel the pressure, particularly the mature PMETs.

I can understand their anxiety. Mature PMETs face challenges from multiple fronts. For example, the digitalisation and technological shifts have led to structural changes to the global economy. Companies require their employees to be equipped with related skill sets, but these could be different from what our mature PMETs were trained in. In addition, mature PMETs face competition not only from foreign workers in Singapore, but also younger Singaporeans who have received higher education.

How should we face the challenges in today’s evolving and highly competitive world? Confucius once said, "At the age of 50, you know what fate has in store for you". I find it very enlightening. As one approaches middle age, one would have gone through many ups and downs in life and acquired precious experiences along the way. At this age, one should be more adaptable to circumstances and not rigidly follow the rules, or be unwilling to consider new ideas. One should face all challenges calmly. Therefore, I urge everybody to continually upskill and reskill to adapt to new working environments. Only then, can we build a better future for ourselves and our families.

Besides mature PMETs, Self-Employed Persons (SEPs) also face tough challenges. The Government is paying closer attention to SEPs working for online platforms because they have an employee-like relationship with these platforms, but they are not covered under the Employment Act. We have established an Advisory Committee to explore how to strengthen protections for these platform workers. We will continue to provide training and job-matching services for other SEPs who wish to transit into regular employment.

Famous Hong Kong singer Sam Hui has a classic song called, “Life is like chess”. A memorable line in the lyrics goes, "Looking ahead, life is like a game of chess. You should ponder over every move. I hope that our chess skills are comparable, and that we understand life through the art of the game." Indeed, life is like a chess game. When you are faced with an ever-changing situation, you will miss out on many good opportunities if you are indecisive.

As for the economy and employment, the Government is actively driving business transformation, creating more jobs that are attractive to Singaporeans to ensure that we emerge stronger in the coming endemic phase. To become a winner, the key lies in everyone working together, laying a strong foundation, and seizing the opportunities. Only by doing so can we achieve good outcomes for all.

( In English ): Let me conclude. The PSP has fielded a slew of data requests. We have responded to all of these. We have given you the number of foreign PMETs. We have given you the number of ICTs over the past few years. We have given you the number of local PMETs. Data is regularly published on unemployment and time-related underemployment.

So, the debate today is on whether CECA and other FTAs allow complete free flow. The answer is clear. It does not.

And second, how do these impact on local employment? In July and now, we have shown you that local employment has increased as a result of FTAs. There is enough data for that. This suggestion that you are not being given data is really a red herring.

Based on what I have shared today, I think reasonable Members would agree that our strategies have worked for the vast majority of Singaporeans. I have not based this argument on anecdotes or perceptions alone but on hard data and facts.

Nevertheless, the concerns of the minority are just as important to all of us. We cannot assure today to every Singaporean that their jobs will always be protected. But make no mistake. We will work very, very, very hard to protect every Singaporean and ensure your employability.

Mr Leong Mun Wai has presented us with one bleak and biased view: that of an anxious and fearful Singapore, whose instinctive reaction to challenges is to withdraw from the world. I reject this view of Singapore and Singaporeans. It does not define us and is not us.

The Motion put forward by Minister Lawrence Wong acknowledges our anxieties, while affirming our achievements; preserves what has worked well, while pointing out the work to be done. And I repeat what Minister Ong Ye Kung and Minister Lawrence Wong have said: we are prepared to fight the next General Election on these principles. And we are determined to fight any party wedded to racism and xenophobia, and a small-minded vision of Singapore. With that, I support Minister Lawrence Wong’s Motion. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker : Mr Leong Mun Wai.

7.20 pm

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Thank you, Mr Speaker, Sir. I thank the Minister for your passionate, informative presentation.

I have a few clarifications. One is PSP has never said we want a closed society or economy. We have just suggested policies that you disagreed with. But today, we are happy that we are here, that all of us recognise that there is a problem. But, of course, before I come to this debate, I know the problem is we cannot agree on the causes of the problem and the severity of the problem. As a result, our solutions will be very different.

So, what the Minister has said just now, I would like to one, clarify that we have not said that we want a closed economy or society. We also want an open society. How we maintain an open society, how we send the message to foreigners, it depends on how we Singaporeans get united and speak with one voice. Now, we have two voices: one from the Government, one from PSP; and maybe the other alternative parties as well because we got the feedback from the ground.

So, what we want, whatever you said, today we come here to realise that there is a problem and that means the past policies have some problems. You cannot just say, "Oh, we just continue with those policies". So, that is why we are asking for a rebalance and I would want to explain to you a little bit more what rebalancing we are talking about.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong, are you seeking clarifications or making another speech? You will have a chance to round up later. If you have clarifications for the Minister, please raise them.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Okay, then, I will direct one question first. First of all, you mentioned about the number of PMEs that were — jobs that were increased from 2005 to 2020. On 6 July, your number was 380,000 for locals and 112,000 for EPs. Today, you give us a figure of 300 and 100. What is the change? Why, why the change? First question. Minister, please.

Dr Tan See Leng: Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Mr Leong for his agreement with many of our policies, even though he thinks that all he is asking for is a rebalancing and I have said that we continually work to refine and tweak and improve our policies. So, we thank you at least —

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Mr Speaker, sorry —

Dr Tan See Leng: He does not agree.

Mr Speaker: Yes, Mr Leong?

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, what I have said is that the policies have actually produced some problems. So, we are here to discuss how to solve the problems. I did not say I agree with your policies. In fact, one of the reasons why we differ on our assessment of the situation is because I think for some of the basic assumptions, there is a big difference. But we will discuss again on that. So, please continue, Minister.

Dr Tan See Leng: Mr Leong has said that PSP has never said that it wants a closed economy. But our point in all of our speeches, I do not think the PAP has ever suggested that we want an economy that is open to every and any foreigner. We have always maintained that we want to select the right talent to complement us. So, I said, let us not talk in abstractions. Let us not hypothesise. What I had debated were your concrete suggestions and why it would not lead to the re-balancing that you asked for.

To your point on the differences in data cited, it is a matter of differences in timeframe. Anyway, all of this data is published, Mr Leong. You can look it up. And, again, if you cannot find it, we are happy to point you to it, just as we have pointed Ms Hazel Poa, to where to look for that information.

Mr Speaker: Ms Hazel Poa.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Sorry, Speaker, Sir, I still have one response.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Minister, sorry. What is the difference in the timeframe? Both are from 2005 to 2020, right?

Dr Tan See Leng: Mr Speaker, may I respond?

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Dr Tan See Leng: On 6 July, it is 15 years from 2005 to 2020 and, at that time, we were talking about PMEs and EPs. When we have time, I can actually segregate and explain to you the difference between PMETs, which are the equivalent of the EPs and S Passes; and PMEs, which are just the equivalent of the EPs. So, today, the statistics quoted to you are for 10 years, from 2010 to 2020. And it is about PMETs and the EPs and S Passes. So, I hope that clears it up. It is different time horizon and also different categorisation.

Mr Speaker: Ms Hazel Poa.

Ms Hazel Poa: Firstly, the charts that have been displayed on the screen over at our location, we cannot see it, any of it. So, can I request for it to be made available to us in a different form?

Mr Speaker: I am sure we can.

Ms Hazel Poa: Okay. The Minister is still quoting 300,000 increase in local PME jobs, but you have not quite answered my question whether those figures include changes resulting from reclassification, as I have mentioned in my speech earlier.

To clarify on my PQs asking for data that is already published, when I communicated with the Parliament Staff, I made it clear that I wanted to compare with some of the statistics that the Government has released; sometimes, as PMETs, sometimes as PMEs.

So, I said that they could either tell us which are the finer classifications that come under PMEs or PMETs or, alternatively, give me the total number of PMETs and PMEs because what is published goes into finer classifications.

Mr Speaker: Minister.

Dr Tan See Leng: For the first point, in terms of the reclassification, I do not have all the statistics here with me now. But the majority, I think I have shared that on 6 July in my Ministerial Statement. The majority of the local PME growth over the last 10 years went to Singaporeans born in Singapore – the majority. That is more than 50%. So, I would urge Ms Hazel Poa not to drive this kind of separation and segregation. Because I really do not think it is healthy for all of us, particularly when at some stage in our not too distant past, all of us, our parents, maybe our grandparents were immigrants.

Ms Hazel Poa: Okay, I would like to clarify that my intention is not to separate between those who are born in Singapore and those who are naturalised, but merely to understand which are really jobs created and which are really just, due to technicalities, they result in an increase in job but is actually not a real increase; it is just that the job holder's status is reclassified.

Dr Tan See Leng: Perhaps, I was not clear. The majority of the jobs created went to Singaporeans who are born and bred here. Not reclassified, yes.

Mr Speaker: Ms Hazel Poa, do you want to pursue that?

Ms Hazel Poa: Okay, you are unable to give a number? Just majority?

Mr Speaker: Ms Hazel Poa, are you asking about Singaporeans, naturalised, born here or are you talking about —

Ms Hazel Poa: Actually, my intention is just to net off the effect of that job increase which is due to reclassification so that we get a better idea what really is the number of new jobs created.

Mr Speaker: Would you like to elaborate what do you mean by "reclassification of jobs"?

Ms Hazel Poa: Okay, I have mentioned this in my speech earlier. So, let us say, for example, you have 1,000 PME jobs held by foreigners. And when these foreigners become PRs, because of the change in status, these 1,000 jobs are now classified under local PMEs —

Mr Speaker: Understand. So, it is still the issue of Singaporean born, others and so on. Okay, Minister.

Dr Tan See Leng: Mr Speaker, Sir, earlier on I covered it; maybe I was too longwinded. I will just repeat it. 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 know you want a specific percentage, it is a majority, so, it is more than 50%. This is the same for PMETs.

Some of the other data points we have published should make it clear that Singaporeans have benefited. We regularly publish unemployment rates for PRs and citizens. The unemployment rate of citizens has remained stable and low. Secondly, the PR population has also remained stable over the past decade at around 500,000 or half a million. So it is not, and it cannot be the case that most of the employment growth went to PRs.

Ms Hazel Poa: Yes, but the PRs become citizens. So, there is a drop in the PRs and then the new foreigners go in to fill up the PR numbers. So, as a whole, the number of citizens plus PRs actually increases. That base increases, and, therefore, leading to an increase in the number of local PME jobs purely due to reclassification, not job creation. That is my point. I am not really even making a difference between citizens and PRs. I am just talking about local citizens plus PR.

Dr Tan See Leng: Mr Speaker, may I respond?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

Dr Tan See Leng: Ms Poa, I have said that the majority of the jobs went to local bred and born Singaporeans. Majority. That means more than 50%. So there is no reclassification. So, it is not like as if these PRs became naturalised Singaporeans. This majority is Singaporeans who are born and bred here. So, for that majority under that category, the statistics do not include those who are not born here.

Ms Hazel Poa: Maybe let me just clarify. The majority of the job increase or majority of the PME jobs are held by those born and bred in Singapore?

Dr Tan See Leng: I am very mindful of and I am actually trying to understand the Member's question here. But the majority of the jobs created went to Singaporeans.

Mr Speaker: Mr Vikram Nair.

7.35 pm

Mr Vikram Nair (Sembawang): Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion standing in the name of the Finance Minister. I also oppose the Motion proposed by Mr Leong Mun Wai to the extent that it states free trade agreements like CECA are responsible for the anxieties created for Singaporeans in relation to jobs. I am quite surprised that Mr Leong maintains this position despite the clarifications that had been provided in the last Sitting about how free trade agreements like CECA work.

It is common ground that Singaporeans have anxieties about jobs. As advisor to the Metal Industries Workers' Union, I have seen retrenchments take place and I have seen how businesses cope with difficulties. The usual cause of retrenchments is usually business difficulties or restructuring. This has nothing to do with free trade agreements. These are business realities.

In the course of COVID-19, many industries have suffered as well, sectors like retail, F&B and tourism. Even well-known names like Robinsons have folded during this period.

The sufferings of all these businesses have nothing to do with free trade agreements. Global businesses are such that business cycles have become much smaller, there is a lot more volatility and people may need to change jobs because the world changes. Industries become redundant very quickly. Typically, in situations where redundancies take place, the reality is that it is usually the foreigners who lose their jobs first as work passes are not renewed.

For those Singaporeans who need to be redeployed or reskilled, where industries are unionised, the unions come in to help. So, this is how we try to work with Singaporeans with job anxieties. And right now, the job anxieties are only going to get more. For those who retain jobs, especially in this current climate, there are many people who feel pressured working from home as well, because they fear potential redundancies. Maybe the bosses do not know that they are working, so they work longer hours. And I think all of this adds to Singaporeans' anxieties about jobs.

As Members of this House, we have to be very clear what are the causes of anxieties.

What happens if there are situations where foreigners take Singaporeans' jobs? And we have all heard anecdotal evidence of this.

MOM has many levers that it does pull in these situations. Currently, companies are required to actually comply with the Fair Consideration Framework, which means that they must give consideration to the resident population first before they apply for foreign work passes. As a lawyer, I have dealt with many companies which have been on the wrong side of this and which have been investigated by MOM and against whom MOM takes actions. So, these levers are exercised judiciously.

What do free trade agreements have to do with all this? I think it would help if people understood free trade agreements. And it is clear that Mr Leong Mun Wai may not even have read the relevant provisions.

The primary aim of free trade agreements is the removal of tariffs. Tariffs are taxes imposed on goods being traded. Generally, the higher the tariffs, the less trade takes place as the cost of trading goes up. Reduction of tariffs encourages trade by reducing transaction costs. Free trade agreements also usually have provisions to facilitate the transfer of services to flow freely between countries. Consumers and businesses will, therefore, have choices to purchase goods and services from all over the world while producers of services can, likewise, look at more countries for a potential market place.

Related to the aim of improving businesses between countries, there are also bilateral and multilateral investment agreements. Typically, these are a different species of agreements. These agreements usually permit countries to invest in each other and the host country would provide protections for such investments such as not to expropriate them. For those of you who have read about a more tumultuous past, there are many situations where foreign investors go into a country, and, because of political turmoil, those investments may get expropriated. So multilateral investment treaties provide that kind of minimum protection.

Some treaties go further. They have clauses that provide Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) status, which means that we will give this country the same provisions it gives to any other trading country.

Against this backdrop, CECA is primarily a free trade agreement that allows goods and services to flow freely between India and Singapore. It has some clauses that protect investments and these include protections against expropriation in Chapter 6.

Let us come to Chapter 9 of CECA. This is where Mr Leong Mun Wai, I think, has found the language on free movement of persons. There is language here on the free movement of persons. But what it allows is the free movement of persons for temporary purposes. This is primarily to facilitate people wishing to visit one country or another for business purposes. I am part of Rajah and Tann’s South Asia Desk and I have a number of clients from India. Generally, if any of them wishes to visit Singapore, they will need a sponsor from Singapore to indicate they are visiting for business purposes when they apply for a visa. And on this basis, they may be granted a visa to visit. The same applies for people who wish to visit for investments and the same thing applies to Singaporeans who wish to visit India. So, this facilitates the free movement of people to do business.

Does this take away jobs? No. Does this create jobs? Potentially, yes. Because more people are coming here to do business. More businesses start up here. More businesses service other parts of the world.

Chapter 9 of CECA does not change anything in relation to citizenship, permanent residence and long-term employment. And this is very expressed in clause 9.2. This means that Singapore retains full discretion on who it admits. The drivers for our long-term employment policies are our needs, as Dr Tan See Leng has explained very clearly in his Ministerial Statement. If it is felt we do not need that many people in a particular sector, or that Singaporeans can do the jobs, it is already within our power to do this and CECA does not change this.

So, what really is Mr Leong Mun Wai trying to achieve with this Motion? CECA is just one out of 26 free trade agreements that we have. Why focus on this one? Is it simply to target Indian nationals or, worse, people of Indian ethnicity? It is clear that the anxieties about jobs relate to structural issues that have nothing to do with CECA.

At the same time, CECA potentially helps to create jobs for people by facilitating investments and trade. According to MTI, some 97,000 locals were employed in 2019 by organisations that invested in India.

If people in this House who have the ability and should research and look into things before coming, do their homework, I think we will probably be in a situation where we have clarity on these issues. I have heard feedback from many people in the Indian community about the discomfort they are feeling with the current anti-CECA stance being perpetuated, which is a thinly-veiled attack against Indians. Even the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged it is a dog-whistle in some corners. Many in Singapore’s Indian community also get caught up and mistaken in this anti-foreigner torrent.

In some ways, I can understand why members of the public may have mistaken beliefs that treaties like CECA are causing foreigners to take their jobs. Essentially, they may be feeling job pressures and job losses, particularly during the pandemic. At the same time, they may see many foreigners, including Indian nationals, having jobs. But these jobs are in different sectors and these jobs, if the Singaporeans are eligible for them, they should apply for them. And if they are not given fair consideration, they can report to MOM and MOM will take action against the employers.

So, I think it is important for us to help solve misunderstandings and make it clear that even though there are foreigners who have jobs, they are not getting it by virtue of free trade agreements like CECA.

But Mr Leong Mun Wai also talked about the Population White Paper and said that this was a White Paper that proposed allowing foreigners to come into Singapore. I was actually in this House when the White Paper was being debated. And again, if you read the White Paper, it says very expressly, we cannot allow in an unlimited number of foreign workers. We do not want to be overwhelmed by more foreign workers than we can absorb or to expand our total population beyond what our island is able to accommodate.

So, if you look at the White Paper properly, it is really a very balanced Paper that looks at Singapore's long-term needs and how many foreigners we can accommodate within that framework.

Against this backdrop, I think, to me, it is very clear that CECA and free trade agreements really have nothing to do with the anxieties Singaporeans face about jobs. There are very real anxieties Singaporeans face and the way to address those is to make sure we continue to create new jobs and be an attractive place for investments to come in.

I am also one of those who agree that we should have protection for Singaporeans and I was also one of those who spoke in favour of the anti-discrimination laws, which I am glad are coming into force. This will give an additional lever.

Currently, MOM already has the power to take away work passes for foreign workers for employers who engage in discriminatory practices. What potential anti-discrimination laws would do is also give the aggrieved individual a personal right, a personal remedy. So, to me, this is one more additional measure to prevent employers from exercising discrimination.

Let me, in closing, also address the amendment put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Pritam Singh.

I am glad that the Workers' Party does seem to have a lot of common ground with us. They have stated expressly that they agree free trade agreements are important for Singapore's future and he has also acknowledged that CECA has been used as a dog-whistle in some corners for racist behaviour.

But I will have to stop short of supporting the amendments. I would actually be objecting to them. The main reason I am objecting to the amendments is firstly, they change the substance of the Motion.

This Motion is a very clear one. There are two Motions before this House. Mr Leong Mun Wai's Motion claims that Singaporeans' job anxieties are caused by free trade agreements like CECA. The Minister's Motion is quite different. It focuses on the measures we need to take to deal with Singaporeans' anxieties and denounces the link to CECA and free trade agreements.

I think what Mr Pritam Singh is really trying to do is to include one of his pet topics – a request for more information – into this debate, which is really quite different from what the core of this debate is.

The first amendment, of course, where he is changing the word "supports Government action" to "calls for stronger Government action" also has an insinuation that the Government is not doing enough. I personally do not think this is fair to the hard work done by people in MOM who I know are bending over backwards to enforce and take measures to support local employment. So, I do not agree with that amendment.

The second amendment to proactively release information on jobs and employment prospects of Singaporeans. There is, actually, a great deal of information out there already. There is quarterly labour market data, advanced market data coming out with breakdowns of Singaporeans and foreigners employed. So, I think an insinuation that there is not adequate information out there is something I cannot support.

In relation to free trade agreements, there are the agreements themselves out there in the public domain which anyone can read but I think very few do, except perhaps a few people like us lawyers. But that information is out there. There is information on the MTI website that simplifies the benefits of free trade agreements for people and, of course, if more information is needed, if a debate is needed on the cost and benefits, we can always have Motions in Parliament.

So, in my view, I do not think the amendment is necessary because it insinuates that there is not enough information out there and we cannot make sensible decisions with the available information. Mr Speaker, for that reason, I would not be supporting the amendment.

Mr Speaker: Ms Janet Ang.

7.49 pm

Ms Janet Ang (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, let me declare that I am a council member of Singapore Business Federation (SBF).

I have spent 37 years in the ICT industry and I was a foreign worker myself: three years in Japan and eight years in China. So, thank you, Mr Speaker, for the privilege to join in the debate on the subject of jobs, livelihoods and foreign talent.

I have shared previously in this Chamber my views of the imperative of free trade agreements (FTAs) for Singapore businesses. The FTA network which Singapore has established, including the more recent Digital Economic Agreements, offer a key tool for businesses to expand into new markets, enhancing accessibility to different markets.

I quote Mr Lam Yi Young, CEO of SBF who wrote in a July article, "Trade is Singapore's lifeline, and it is imperative that we remain open and connected to the world."

We are a country built by immigrants. But Singapore has gone from third world to the first by recognising that though we are an island, it is imperative that we cannot behave like one. We need to be relevant to the global economy. When I did research of all the rankings that are out there, in almost every competitiveness ranking report for the most innovative cities in the world, the world's best global cities, the world's most competitive economy, this is what I found.

A city's ability to attract talented human capital, generate economic growth, increase competitiveness and ensure stability and security are key factors that make the difference. Singapore, though just a little red dot, is ranked amongst the top 10 in many of these lists.

The concentration of quality talent is invariably a key factor for outperformers, whether they are companies or cities. Singapore's highly- educated workforce, enabled by world-class University communities here, coupled with our ability to attract diversity of global talent, has helped us maintain our competitiveness and attracted large multinational companies to expand in Singapore and startups to plant their seeds of innovation here.

In dialogues which I had with trade associations and chambers (TACs) throughout the year, it is almost unanimous – I could say unanimous – that Singapore must maintain our open foreign talent policy.

To quote Mr Farid Khan, President of Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce, "Singapore must accept diversity and remain open and transparent in our foreign talent policy even as we scale up the number of graduates from Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) majoring in key disciplines where we have supply/demand gaps: information technology, cybersecurity, software engineering and the like."

In the same breath, all agree that companies, both global MNCs and Singapore companies, need to implement fair practices in the workplace. They demonstrated their commitment with a pledge in January earlier this year and Mr Per Magnusson tells me that the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce has focused on operationalising the intent of the pledge by doing a pilot of orientation programmes for newcomers to Singapore.

But, of course, alas, industry-wide, it is still work in progress.

We might think that foreign talents are needed only by the MNCs but that is not true.

Dr T Chandroo, Chairman of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) shared with me an example in the built environment industry.

Building information modelling (BIM) professionals were in high demand for their competences and skills early last year or in recent years. However, positions, such as BIM managers, project managers and architectural managers, had to be filled by foreigners or outsourced to foreign companies because Singaporean architects and engineers were not sufficiently exposed to the convergence of these technologies with traditional engineering and architectural disciplines.

The foreign talent was proficient in visualising building information models (BIMs) and AutoCAD. Likewise, in the engineering domain, there is an increasing need for employees to have multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary skill sets.

Businesses that have secured contracts from clients cannot wait for a critical mass of Singaporeans to be trained before they can service the contracts. Foreign talent, hence, provides a good complement as our Singaporean Core upskill and reskill for the changing demands.

Notwithstanding that I am a National University of Singapore (NUS) alumni, I must say that NUS' bold move in transforming curriculum structures – for example, setting up the new College of Design and Engineering – to prepare the future Singaporean workforce who will be interdisciplinary, broad-based critical thinkers and problem solvers in a VUCA world – VUCA being volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – is exactly what the industry expects of our world-class Universities: to lead the way of change and to secure our workforce's relevance in the new normal.

Mr Roland Ng, President of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, recently wrote an opinion piece in Zaobao; and I am very happy that Minister Tan See Leng actually referred to it in Chinese just now.

Mr Ng shared that while companies are committed to do all they can to transform their business model, redesign jobs, offer training and upskilling and reskilling opportunities to locals, there remains a near-to medium-term structural issue, that is, locals continue to shun certain jobs, for example, physically strenuous jobs, jobs that require shift work and workplaces in remote locations.

There are certain deep-seated negative stereotypes of jobs which Singaporeans seem to not want to take on or, perhaps, I should say, that Singaporean parents do not want their kids to take on.

These jobs, however, are critical and essential to our economy. Such jobs can be found in both the domestic sector like the built environment and construction as well as the export sector.

For example, a considerable number of foreign manpower work in our food manufacturing sector that exports about 60% of its manufacturing output to overseas markets. Without continued access to foreign workers, companies in these essential sectors will not be able to function, stay viable and thrive, and, hence, even the jobs of the locals in those companies will be threatened and, by extension, impact the wider economy.

Without access to foreign workers to take on work that locals do not want to do, it will affect the export readiness and competitiveness of Singapore brands.

I spoke to Dr Hsien Hsien Lei, CEO of AmCham Singapore and she shared with me a preview of the soon-to-be released 2021 AmCham Manpower Survey of member companies. Sixty-four percent of respondents looking to hire Singaporeans for senior level roles – managers and above – are finding that candidates lack relevant skills and 53% of respondents report candidates lack necessary work experience.

Meanwhile, in order to fill these gaps, companies need to bring in qualified foreign talent who can do the job and also support the training and development of high-potential local talent, especially in areas, such as technical knowledge and global markets. This feedback is pretty consistent with the other TACs.

Critical for Singapore is to understand what are the relevant skills and work experience that employers are looking for and to be willing to step up to learn and to reskill as well as to lean in to express our interest in picking up the new skills and our readiness to pick up the relevant work experiences.

If we do not unleash our voice to compete for the job, we have no one else to blame. Asking "who has moved my cheese?" will not help. Go get the cheese. Be humble and learn from the foreign talent coach and do not hesitate to ask the boss for that job when you are done learning.

Why you? Because you are always ready to learn and will do the job even better than your foreign talent coach. And who knows? Your foreign talent coach may get promoted in the headquarters and bring you along as he or she rises in his or her career.

There are many such heartwarming stories during the 30 years of my career. It does take two hands to clap. Everything starts, in my opinion, with the right frame of mind and attitude.

That said, during the Committee of Supply, I did highlight that in engaging with the MNCs, in particular, I hope that MTI and EDB, which are the ones the MNCs work with upfront, will lean in on them to really recognise the value of the Singapore talent as the foundation of their business success. While it is very good to have MOM come in to police and to check, when it is at the policing end, it is always not so much fun. When we start it right, that is always the best.

So, if Singapore hopes to continue to secure good jobs and livelihoods for Singaporeans into the future, we need to continue to be amongst the best of global cities in the world.

The alternative is to fall off to the wayside. For a moment, consider what that alternative might look like.

We no longer are a hub for human capital and, therefore, lose our edge in attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Without a melting pot of talents, innovations will likely be dry and, without innovation, the investments into the best-in-class infrastructure will not be funded. Businesses no longer find Singapore attractive for their hub activities and the list continues to spiral downward.

At that point, we will not be debating as to whether having foreign talent in our workforce is a good thing or not. The debate would shift to how do we stop the brain drain of our younger Singaporeans who, in the absence of good jobs and good opportunities in a Singapore that has become unplugged from the global network, will need to leave their country in pursuit of better opportunities for themselves and their families, elsewhere.

The future of that Singapore in that story will be sad one. We have watched this movie before.

And as if this is not nightmarish enough, with Singapore's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) being in decline for a few decades and hitting a low of 1.1 in 2020, we will see the decline in the size of the Republic's working population. I have four daughters. So, I can say this loudly.

Let us make sure that we do not ever come close to this alternate state being a reality.

Mr Speaker, I hope that, with humility, pride and solidarity as Singaporeans, we will be a resilient nation. As the Prime Minister said in his National Day Rally closing speech, "We have done it before, we can do it again".

I support Minister Lawrence Wong's Motion. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Senior Minister of State Sim Ann.

8.03 pm

The Senior Minister of State for National Development (Ms Sim Ann): Please allow me to speak in Mandarin, Mr Speaker.

( In Mandarin ) : [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] : Mr Speaker, thank you for letting me join the debate.

The impact of foreign manpower on our economy and on Singaporeans is once again a hot topic. The issue is not new. Foreign manpower makes up one-third of our total workforce and are present in many professions. It is quite normal to have objective discussions about the advantages and disadvantages associated with foreign manpower.

However, the focus seems to have shifted over the last one to two years. FTAs, especially CECA, have been targeted. Some claim that CECA allowed for the influx of large numbers of workers of Indian origin, harming the interests of Singaporean PMETs. It is not hard to notice PSP’s enthusiasm for such claims.

On 6 July, Ministers Ong Ye Kung and Tan See Leng gave thorough clarifications and rebuttals to such claims.

Today, the PSP is moving a Motion on Singaporeans’ anxiety on jobs and livelihoods, making specific mention of CECA again, as though the discussion on 6 July never took place. Clearly, PSP remains unmoved by what the two Ministers had shared.

The PSP has been using guerrilla-style tactics, raising piecemeal questions in Parliament and on social media on the nationalities of foreign workers and the structure of our labour force. When asked point-blank, they have expressed agreement with the Government’s economic strategy, only to change tune again.

Hearing their speeches today, I feel even more confused. Mr Leong Mun Wai said in his speech that CECA is not his main focus today. Then why put it in the title of the Motion? When he could not answer Minister Shanmugam’s questions, his response was to ask for more data.

We may never find out what is the PSP’s real stance on the issue, but that does not really matter. I do not believe most Singaporeans would support discrediting the whole of the Government’s economic strategy. But it is true that employment is a sensitive topic to many people, especially because of the impact of digitalisation and automation, as well as COVID-19 on our livelihoods. So, inevitably there will be some anxiety. I doubt the public would care particularly about our specific responses to Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa, but they would want to know whether the Government is aware of some reasonable doubts they might harbour and what the Government is going to do about them.

I believe we can group these into four main doubts.

If the Government truly prioritises the interests of Singaporeans, why allow in so many foreign PMETs to compete with Singaporeans? If I am treated unfairly by my foreign boss or colleagues, how would the Government help me?

Is the Government truly aware of the struggles of Singaporean PMETs, especially those who are middle-aged and facing stiff competition and fears of being replaced?

Is Singapore not a highly competitive place? Surely, MNCs will continue to invest here even if we further restrict hiring of foreign manpower. Is the Government simply unwilling to do so?

Does the Singapore Government have some kind of special affinity for India and Indian PMETs?

The first doubt to be addressed: why does the Government allow in so many foreign PMETs to compete with Singaporeans? If I am treated unfairly by my foreign boss or colleagues, how would the Government help me?

The Government has focused heavily on developing the economy over the years to secure better jobs and better lives for Singaporeans. International competition never ceases. We have to run to stay in the same place. We must not depend only on our existing competitive advantages but must also capture new growth areas. Our various strategies are interlinked: attracting foreign investment, strengthening local companies, grooming the local workforce through formal education and lifelong learning, and bringing in foreign manpower to complement the local workforce.

Singaporeans are very familiar with this set of economic strategies, particularly our drive to gain hub status for various industries. We seek to attract MNCs to invest in Singapore, particularly to set up their Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific or even global HQs. This brings better jobs and a wider range of employment choices for Singaporeans.

For these strategies to work, it is not enough to have a well-trained and diligent local workforce. We have to let companies recruit foreign manpower to overcome the shortage of local workers and staff the positions available in regional and global HQs, which require familiarity with different countries and regions. So, this foreign manpower would complement local manpower, but also compete to some extent.

Our economy has been growing but the local-born Singapore population has not been able to keep pace. So, we see more foreigners in our economy, and locals feel that competition has intensified.

The Government wants good job opportunities and careers for local employees.

How to bring this about? First, we raise Singaporeans’ competitiveness. We develop a well-rounded and diversified education system, where curricula are regularly updated based on industry feedback, and which prioritises work attachments and internships, so that each graduating cohort is amply prepared for the workplace. We also invest heavily in lifelong learning and implement a full suite of measures under SkillsFuture that encourages reskilling, so that Singaporeans can take on larger roles or enter new professions.

The Government also regulates the entry of foreign PMETs and takes action against unfair treatment. This includes imposing minimum age-salary requirements for EPs so that companies would recruit foreign PMETs of a certain quality who are more likely to complement local PMETs rather than compete directly with locals on wages; requiring companies to follow Tripartite Guidelines for Fair Employment Practices and fairly consider local jobseekers before recruiting foreigners; and paying special attention to companies with a concentration of foreign PMETs of a particular nationality. They may be placed on the Fair Consideration Framework Watchlist and have their EP privileges curtailed.

Even if a company satisfies the above requirements, the Government would take seriously any claim of discrimination against Singaporeans working there, for instance, a foreign boss favouring employees from his country and passing over deserving local employees. Local employees would naturally feel particularly aggrieved if they were being treated unfairly by foreigners, on our own land. Since the whole rationale of allowing foreign manpower in is to help make good jobs available to Singaporeans, the Government will certainly not condone this. If MOM were to receive such reports, it would commence investigations in line with the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP). Companies that behave unfairly will face consequences.

Although such interventions are not public, companies operating in Singapore know they do occur. As Prime Minister Lee has said during the National Day Rally, MNC leaders do pay attention to whether their operations in Singapore have reason to cause concern to the Government. It is the Government’s duty to keep reasonable tabs on enterprise behaviour.

The Government pursues an open economic policy for the benefit of Singaporeans. Although we cannot do without some foreign manpower, the Government will not allow unlimited importation of foreign manpower and will not stand for discrimination against local workers. Subsidies in skills upgrading are largely limited to local workers; support schemes for individuals and families to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 are also focused on locals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused incalculable damage to the world economy. However, in 2020, local employment in Singapore increased by 14,900 even as overall employment shrank by 166,600. In other words, foreign manpower bore the brunt of the impact of COVID-19 on the Singapore economy, cushioning the locals. Moreover, PMET vacancies remain.

It is clear that the Government puts the interests of Singaporean workers first.

The second doubt: has the Government truly taken to heart the struggles of middle-aged PMETs?

The Chinese phrase “人到中年” is often quoted in reference to all the pressures and frustrations that people experience once they become middle-aged. In 1982, a Chinese movie of the same title was released. I was very young then and did not fully understand the content. But I recall that the protagonist was long-suffering and that middle-age seemed to be a troubled life stage.

Middle-aged is usually defined as 45-65 years of age. I am now middle-aged, and so are my friends and many of the constituents I serve. I dare say most Members of Parliament also belong to this age group. So, we are most familiar with everything that is associated with this life stage. Middle-aged people have to look after aged parents and, often, young children. At work, aside from dealing with the demands of their bosses and customers, they need to upgrade and keep up with ever-changing technology and face up to intense global competition. We are not as fit and spry as we once were. At the very least, we need new reading glasses. Some among us will also have health worries.

The Government pays particular attention to middle-aged workers, especially middle-aged PMETs. PMETs used to be in the minority within our workforce, but our economic structure has changed significantly; we are now a knowledge-based economy. Knowledge enterprises have grown, and PMETs now form more than half of the workforce. It is normal for companies to restructure and close, and for new companies to be formed all the time in a market economy. So, more PMETs will experience displacement, and more will find themselves changing firms or even professions.

Nonetheless, we have managed to keep PMET unemployment low. However, since 2015, we have observed that the unemployment rate for PMETs aged 50 and above has been trending above that for PMETs in general.

This is a structural trend which reflects the impact of digitalisation and the rapid changes in skills that the market seeks. The jobs held by some middle-aged PMETs were replaced through digitalisation and automation, but new jobs have also emerged, including those related to digital tech.

We need a structural solution, and not simply curb the entry of foreign manpower.

We use a multi-pronged approach to help middle-aged PMETs master new skills and regain employment as soon as possible. SkillsFuture, established in 2015, is, by design, tilted towards supporting middle-aged workers. Unlike fresh graduates, they have been out of school for a longer time and need to reconnect with lifelong learning. A SkillsFuture Mid-Career Support Package was launched last year, and additional SkillsFuture Credit top-ups were made available for those aged 40-60. Workforce SG also focuses its career counselling and job-matching efforts on those who are middle-aged and above. It is also a focus of the National Jobs Council led by Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Middle-aged PMETs face other pressures, aside from those related to the workplace.

Other policies launched by the Government help to relieve such pressures. Increases in preschool subsidies, enhanced financial assistance schemes for schools, as well as subsidies and bursaries for Institutes of Higher Learning help to reduce the burden on parents. Meanwhile, the Pioneer Generation Package, Merdeka Generation Package, MediShield Life and CareShield Life help those who have to bear their elderly parents’ medical expenses. Older middle-agers can also be direct beneficiaries of some of these schemes.

The Government values middle-aged PMETs. They are a policy priority.

The third doubt: will enterprises really be driven away if we further restrict the entry of foreign manpower?

Building an international trade and finance hub is an arduous task. While Singapore has some competitive advantages, there are also obvious drawbacks, such as our limited manpower pool and high manpower costs. We have strong rivals ahead of us, and competitors nipping at our heels.

If not for the fact that we have expended so much effort to build our economy up to a certain scale, we would not be in a position to even talk about curbing foreign manpower. Of course, we seek to uphold the interests of local jobseekers. The Government is going to take a further step, of legislating the Tripartite Fair Employment Guidelines and enhancing our stand against unfair workplace practices. This was a carefully considered decision after taking in views from Labour Movement representatives and NTUC Members of Parliament. I am glad to hear that Ms He Ting Ru has noticed this, too.

However, we must go about this carefully and strike the right balance. Just now, Ms Janet Ang gave a vivid description of the dire consequences if we do not get the balance right. We have a saying in Chinese: "it is easy to invite a deity into your home but hard to send it away".

It is the opposite when it comes to developing the economy and attracting MNCs: it is hard work to attract them, but only too easy to send them away. It is not only MNCs, but local companies, too, who constantly appeal to the Government to relax curbs on foreign manpower so that they may have more breathing room. The Government understands their challenges, but we have to put the interests of Singaporean workers first. In the latest world competitiveness rankings by IMD, Singapore slipped from No 1 to No 5, because we ranked lower for factors, such as “attitudes towards globalisation”, “availability of skilled labour” and “immigration laws preventing companies from hiring foreign labour”. Still a good result, but it goes to show that international competition is stiff.

Losing companies to other economies will result in the worst possible outcome for Singaporean workers. It is necessary to regulate foreign manpower, but we have to do so cautiously and not in abrupt ways. Repeatedly calling for curbs on foreign manpower may win some support, but this could morph into xenophobia and discourage companies from coming here or remaining here. This would affect Singapore’s competitiveness and threaten Singaporeans’ prospects.

The exchange between Ms Hazel Poa and Minister Tan See Leng worries me, because the line of questioning was about local-born Singaporean Citizens. I, too, am a born-and-bred Singaporean. I would be especially happy to see fellow born-and-bred Singaporeans do well. It is very natural.

First, local born Singaporeans share many collective memories and feel a bond with one another. It is only natural that we cheer for one another. Second, Singapore is such a small country, with a small population. To achieve international acclaim in the economic sector or in entrepreneurship, innovation, sports and the arts is no easy feat. We would, undoubtedly, feel happy and proud. But if we were to question a successful person’s citizenship and ask if he is a local-born Singaporean, instead of first congratulating him or being happy for him, then something is changing in our society.

A few days ago, I was invited to a concert co-organised by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lianhe Zaobao, featuring Mr Jin Ta, SSO’s Principal Flute. He played beautifully, but my mind was occupied with today’s debate. I feel apologetic towards him. There he was, such an outstanding musician performing for the audience, and all I could think about was wondering whether everyone would sincerely enjoy his music, or judge his contributions based on his birthplace.

After the concert, the CEO of SSO, Mr Chng Hak Peng, asked for my views, and I shared my thoughts with him candidly. He said, “Guess what? The question I get asked most often is what proportion of the SSO is Singaporean. I would reply that the majority of our musicians are Singapore Citizens. But I would get asked further: how many of them are local-born?”

So, it can be seen that some people do draw such lines in our society – whether in the commercial, arts or sports fields.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: “Judge not a hero by where he came from.” If we do the opposite, we end up going down a path of no return, which is not even logical.

Think about it. We are happy with local-born Singaporeans doing well. But when someone wishes to make Singapore their home, and fight alongside us, should we not be happy, too? This person could be working here, serving Singaporean customers. He could head a listed company and make money for Singaporean shareholders. He could be providing healthcare for our elderly or educating our young.

Talent from around the world have many options. If the person chooses to come to Singapore and not elsewhere, is that not also a form of success for Singapore? If we keep drawing lines between the local-born and naturalised citizens, we would have defeated ourselves, even before we face competition from others.

Let us not forget that the pandemic has accelerated the trend of working from home. Anyone can be hired from anywhere. For companies that need foreign manpower, this brings about many advantages. It also means a new challenge for Singapore and Singaporeans. We should be upholding, not undermining, our competitiveness at such a critical juncture.

Let me turn to CECA.

Minister Ong Ye Kung and Minister Tan See Leng had, on 6 July, clearly explained why the Movement of Natural Persons provisions in CECA have very little impact on the actual entry of Indian professionals into Singapore and that there had not been many intra-corporate transferees under CECA. Mr Leong Mun Wai had acknowledged during the debate that he and Ms Hazel Poa are for FTAs. He expressed understanding that the interests of Singaporeans had not been used as bargaining chips in FTA negotiations and that Singaporeans’ interests had been taken into account.

Nonetheless, the Motion standing in their names today once again mentions “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 CECA”.

Even if we leave aside the question of their motivation for bringing up CECA repeatedly, I doubt it would do much good to painstakingly repeat our answers.

Let us cut straight to the chase and address the fourth doubt: has the Singapore Government got some special affinity for India and Indians, so much so that we welcome ever-increasing numbers of Indian nationals to live and work in Singapore, in competition with local PMETs?

PMETs from India have, indeed, increased in numbers. Minister Tan See Leng has said that Indian nationals have grown from one-seventh of EP holders in 2005 to one quarter in 2020. Many Indian nationals can be found in some professions, especially finance and IT, and there are concentrations of residents from India in some private estates.

Some locals find this hard to get used to. Indian PMETs are here to make a living. It makes no sense for them to cause offence, but some might take longer to blend in, in terms of lifestyles, work habits and the way they interact. A handful of Indian PMETs have been caught on social media misbehaving, which has caused those who are already uneasy with the change to feel more offended.

We have been emphasising racial harmony in Singapore over the years. Hence, most people would refrain from public discussion about race and nationality. However, we cannot rule out some people wondering quietly: why is the Government so welcoming of Indians? A letter by Mr Tay Ping Hui was published in Lianhe Zaobao in May this year. Entitled “I give my heart to the moon, but does the moon care?”, the letter expresses this sentiment in a subtle manner. The main gist of his piece: is it worthwhile for Singapore to be so generous towards India and Indians, when the goodwill is not reciprocated? The letter referred to some circumstances relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and alluded to bad behaviour by some Indian PMETs.

Not everyone can write as well as Mr Tay. Some are fearful of crossing red lines and causing unnecessary misunderstandings, and choose to keep their doubts to themselves. This creates space for those who peddle critiques of CECA. Most people might not know or care about the details in CECA. They only know that it is an FTA with India and assume that it could explain why more Indian PMETs have appeared in Singapore. Hence, critiques of CECA have found a ready audience. Soon, CECA became a code word for Indians, and a cover for some racially-charged commentary.

The answer: Singapore has no special affinity for workers from any country, including India. What we want is to become a finance and digital/ICT hub, to create better jobs for Singaporeans. India happens to be a major exporter of skilled manpower for both industries, especially when it comes to ICT. India and China produce the largest number of skilled manpower in the world for the IT industry. Indian ICT professionals are not only numerous, but also well-versed in English. China’s own ICT industry has been developing at a rapid pace. With a huge domestic market, the demand for their homegrown talent is robust. So, relatively fewer ICT professionals are available to come to places like Singapore now. You will find large numbers of Indian professionals in any English-speaking economy that seeks to build finance or ICT hubs. It is the case in Silicon Valley, New York and London.

As mentioned previously, intra-corporate transferees under CECA had been few. Most Indian PMETs entered Singapore on EPs applied for by their employers, via normal channels. In other words, even if CECA did not exist, our strategy of building a finance hub and ICT hub would mean that there would likely be as many Indian PMETs here.

Singapore, too, has been grooming our own finance and IT talent, so that they can do well in these fast-growing sectors. From 2005 to 2020, in the ICT sector, there were 35,000 jobs created for local PMETs, compared to a 25,000 increase in EP holders. In the finance sector, there were 85,000 jobs created for local PMETs, compared to a 20,000 increase in EP holders – four times as many.

Then, do our companies really need to hire so many Indian PMETs? I have mentioned that India is a major exporter of skilled manpower in finance and ICT. IT students enrolled across various tertiary settings in Singapore were 7,600 in 2020. According to an OECD report, India produced 585,000 ICT graduates in 2015, which also outnumber those in many other countries.

If we restrict enterprises in their hiring of Indian professionals, they will feel constrained. Their operational plans will be affected. Some might even consider giving up on Singapore and going elsewhere.

It is clear that the growing presence of Indian PMETs in Singapore has nothing to do with CECA, nor any special affinity that the Government has for Indians. It has to do with our economic strategy to grow as a financial hub and an IT hub, which we have no reason to abandon. These are among the world’s fastest growing industries and can bring good jobs for Singaporeans.

While there is no special affinity, we certainly have nothing against Indian PMETs either. Approval of EPs should be based primarily on the needs of companies. We pay attention to overall numbers and whether Singaporeans are treated fairly, rather than focus on any particular nationality. The Government will also continue to pursue integration efforts, and encourage foreign professionals working and living here to respect local culture and integrate well. Indian EP holders have to clear the same bar as those from other sources and checks are in place for all sources to guard against letting in under-qualified EPs.

However, becoming Permanent Residents (PRs) or Singapore Citizens (SC) is quite a different matter altogether. When it comes to PRs, we are careful not to cause major shifts in ethnic proportions. When it comes to naturalisation, we are even more careful. This is why many well-qualified Indian nationals have yet to receive approvals for their PR/SC applications even after a long wait.

I hope that this debate would have dispelled some doubts in people’s minds and help them to see that: we have a comprehensive approach towards boosting the competitiveness of local PMETs and ensuring their fair treatment; the Government values middle-aged PMETs and seeks to relieve the pressures they experience; the Government has been regulating the entry of foreign PMETs and will tighten if necessary, but we must not drive away enterprises or that will harm the interests of Singaporeans; and the Government has no special affinity for workers from any country, including India. We exist to serve the interests of Singaporeans.

Moreover, it is the duty of the Government to consider the needs of Singaporeans at every life stage. Undoubtedly, we should care about middle-agers. However, old age comes after middle-age, which means significant expenses for both the individual and society in terms of retirement adequacy and healthcare needs. If our economy does not do well, our people will have little purchasing power and the state cannot afford more subsidies. Who could possibly retire in peace in such a scenario?

I would like to address the Workers’ Party’s proposed amendments to Minister Lawrence Wong’s Motion. Minister Lawrence Wong’s Motion contains a phrase “supports Government actions to manage the population of foreign manpower”. The Workers’ Party has proposed replacing “supports” with “calls for stronger”. In addressing the third doubt, I have mentioned that the Government will continue to be judicious in balancing the needs of managing foreign manpower and maintaining our economic vitality to safeguard Singaporeans’ interests. That is well captured in the original Motion.

The Workers’ Party has asked to include another paragraph calling on the Government to release more information. I do not think we lack information for this debate. This was a delaying tactic employed by the PSP when they could not answer questions posed to them. I do not think the Workers’ Party needs to go along with them and add an unnecessary limb to the Motion.

Hence, the Government and PAP Members will support the original Motion standing in Minister Lawrence Wong’s name and not the amendments proposed by the Workers’ Party.

So, let us adopt a more objective attitude in addressing the challenges that we will inevitably face when developing our economy and creating jobs for Singaporeans, and not be swayed by seductive arguments or waver in our commitment towards an open economy. Most importantly, we must not allow trust between the people and the Government to be eroded. Let us work hand in hand to overcome immediate challenges and build a stronger foundation for our future and that of our next generation.

Mr Speaker, I cannot accept the Motion standing in the name of Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa. I support the Motion standing in the name of the Finance Minister.

8.43 pm

Ms Hazel Poa: ( In Mandarin ) : [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] : Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just now, Ms Sim Ann mentioned that the exchange between me and the Minister for Manpower had worried her because we seemed to be talking about whether some Singaporeans are local-born or not. I would like to clarify that the term "local-born Singaporean" was not said by me. It was the Minister for Manpower who had given the statistics, and more than once. In her ensuing speech, Ms Sim Ann has expressed disdain for this attitude. I would like to ask if she was directing this at the Minister for Manpower?

Ms Sim Ann: ( In Mandarin ) : [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] : If Ms Hazel Poa had not mentioned this, I would not even want to bring it up. Mr Leong Mun Wai from PSP has repeatedly cast doubt on the nationality of the CEO of DBS, Mr Piyush Gupta, and we have discussed this at length. Here, I would like to say that somebody needs to speak up on behalf of people like Mr Piyush Gupta.

In fact, this type of argument is exactly what I referred to as drawing lines between Singaporeans. I think we have already had a clear discussion on the matter. I suggest that PSP need not undermine itself by reminding us of what they have said.

8.45 pm

Mr Saktiandi Supaat (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Mr Speaker, Sir, first of all, I would like to declare I am an employee in a foreign bank in the financial sector. I would like to join the debate by focusing on the related issues of globalisation and digitalisation as they relate to the two Motions.

The Motion by the Minister for Finance, who actually has elaborated on how FTAs and the efforts by the Government to help raise livelihoods have created many quality jobs for Singaporeans. A very stark contrast to PSP's Motion by Mr Leong Mun Wai, which casts doubts in some way, on our various FTAs and the various FTAs he mentioned earlier on. So, very important, a stark contrast. I will also talk about how Singaporeans, especially mid-career employees aged 40 to 60 and PMETs in sectors perceived to be affected by foreign talents and students who hope to join the workforce and how they should take advantage of the new opportunities in spite of the current economic environment.

First, we have benefited from globalisation in many ways in Singapore. Singapore and other countries in the region have reaped substantial dividends from pursuing an export-oriented development strategy. By opening up our economy via multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements and participating in global value chains, we were able to industrialise and grow rapidly for long periods and, in the process, transform into middle or high-income countries.

Inadvertently, Singapore has built a reputation as a key hub in Southeast Asia and, in some cases globally, for finance, transhipment activities, business services, transportation and logistics. We should do our utmost to keep it that way. We also have a robust manufacturing base, which is a key node in the complex value chains that wrap around East Asia.

As a global financial centre, Singapore is ranked fourth, behind only London, New York and Hong Kong and ahead of Tokyo, in the 2018 Global Financial Centres Index. Total assets under management in Singapore stood at S$4.7 trillion in 2020, having increased at around 15% to 17% compound annual growth rate over the previous five years. In fact, the financial and fintech sectors created 2,500 jobs and are expected to create 6,500 more in 2021, particularly in technology, wealth management, corporate banking and insurance.

So, I was a bit confused when Mr Leong Mun Wai mentioned that over the past 10 to 20 years, opportunities for Singaporeans and in various sectors have not improved.

Singapore is also a favoured location for multinational companies with more than 7,000 operating some form of headquarters in the city-state. It also hosts 4,200 regional headquarter operations. This is considerably more than Hong Kong with 1,389 regional headquarters, Sydney with 533, Tokyo with 531 and Shanghai with 470. We have many Singaporeans working in these MNCs, some of whom are also in this Chamber now.

Despite these core strengths, Singapore's economy needs to continue growing. By how much is a matter of debate. Arguably, to remain an attractive and vibrant economic hub, Singapore's economy needs to grow at around 2% to 3% a year, which is feasible for a high-income country, such as Singapore. The challenge, however, is finding where this growth will come from to continue creating jobs for Singaporeans without coming up with changes to measures or policies that may unravel our long-term growth.

In the meantime, for small and open economies, continued engagement with world markets in various ways, including FTAs across many countries, including the US, Australia, China and even India. It is not a choice but an economic imperative.

It is because of our persistent belief in free trade and our active engagement with countries that are willing to be equal partners, in areas of trade, travel, services and so on. In spite of some adjustments to our trade policies over the years, we remain one of the most market-oriented and open economies in the world.

By participating actively in the global economy, we have made it easier to move internationally and this, in turn, accelerates the factors for labour mobility, enabling Singaporeans to seek more opportunities and experiences overseas.

The discussion so far, from the start, has been mostly about domestic jobs created for Singaporeans in Singapore which is valid and which is really something that we should discuss. But we should also discuss about opportunities for Singaporeans going abroad and the fact that our discussion today, talking about these two Motions – in my view and also in talking to the markets – is very closely watched by the rest of the world. In particular, concerns about our principles of free trade and our view on foreign talent have an impact on how we are perceived by the rest of the world.

As of 2019, the population of Singaporeans living and working overseas stands at over 34,000 and may be even more. We are sought after in regions of growth, such as China, India, the Middle East, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia and many more countries, I am sure, because of our skills and bilingualism. That is also because our Government has invested in some of these regions and has kept a relatively comfortable stance on foreign talent as a key hub for many sectors. We have to be mindful that any change in stance to foreign talent or signs of xenophobia creeping into our policies will signal to other countries this shift in the markets and, inevitably, in the long run, also have an impact on our future Singaporean workers venturing abroad.

With the pandemic, more Singaporean talent abroad have decided to come home. But they have brought back with them highly-valued international insights on innovation and culture. As representatives of Singapore, they shared the Singaporean work ethic of high efficiency and reliability to the rest of the world, so that Singaporeans would remain sought-after employees. Our policies in Singapore have contributed to that, eventually with them coming back home.

Globalisation allows for different cultures and economic systems around the world to become connected and to integrate with one another because of the influence of large multinational companies and of global communication. Yet it takes a certain type of person to truly comprehend this and turn this into an advantage.

I met a resident whose experience I thought was interesting. The Singapore resident works in an international petroleum trading company in Singapore which trades across Asia, Australia and the Middle East. She said that when the pandemic broke out, the Singapore office was literally the only office that was getting things done. And because of Singapore's multicultural and multilingual characteristics, the multinational staff here were able to help fill the gaps in communications between the other offices. One example she gave was being good with understanding accents and another was being cognisant of the needs of some international colleagues who needed time off for religious activities and having an adequate support system in place.

Consequently, she also noted the threat of remote working from anywhere in the world casting a shadow of instability on jobs. While it is important to stay vigilant and humble, Singaporeans have little to fear because we have good international reputation and unique ability to contribute a global mindset to the employer. But what is clear is that there other more pertinent and major challenges to our Singaporean jobs in MNCs, such as disruptive technology and digital labour markets or remote working.

Globalisation is not only seen in economic activities. It also includes the proliferation of technologies where communications and distribution networks are becoming very significant in people's life. This brings me to my next point, on digitalisation of the economy.

In Singapore, technological adoption is even more urgent in view of the country's ageing population and compositional shifts of the labour force over the next decade. The working-age population has probably peaked already in 2018, 2019, and the resident labour force growth will slow to 0.7% per annum over the next decade, from 1.6% per annum, on average, between 2011 and 2016.

So, for Singapore to sustain healthy growth and living standards to continue rising, it must keep leveraging technology to drive productivity growth and new growth areas, such as, for example, in smart energy, healthcare and technology-related sectors. That will constitute part of where the opportunities will lie.

The Government has taken the lead to create a nationwide movement dedicated to this. Under SG Digital, there is a plethora of programmes and grants to help businesses, individuals looking to get into the relevant sectors and the community of people who rely on it for their daily life.

With the increase in digitalisation of more industries, this is already creating a global demand for ICT talents and relevant roles in maintaining the security and functionality of these digital systems. This has contributed to the increase in the number of ICT talents working in Singapore.

The benefits of globalisation for small open economies, such as Singapore, are there, but there are challenges associated with globalisation and Minister Lawrence Wong has highlighted that and a few other Members here as well. We need to take stock of the current tensions arising from the uneven distributional effects of globalisation, we know that and the potential dislocations posed by new technology.

The Government has, over the past decades, taken practical policy measures to mitigate the side effects of globalisation and achieve inclusive growth. We should enhance these efforts, as mentioned in the Motion by Minister Lawrence Wong. But at the same time, we need to also be cognisant that we are an economy in transition facing a demographic shrinking population issue, rising inequalities and competitiveness issues as we become a more mature economy. Mr Speaker, in Malay, please.

( In Malay ) : [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] : One segment of Singaporeans who are facing the effects of globalisation daily are mid-career jobseekers and employees in the age range of 40 to 60 years, who are worried about the current employment situation and the inclination towards digitalisation. This is not because they do not want to pick up new skills. In fact, most Singaporeans recognise that learning digital skills is the only way forward. According to a recent survey, 98% of respondents aged between 56 and 65 believed in reskilling and upskilling to stay relevant.

The SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways programme has been extended and enhanced to cater to demand. I hope to call on the Government to share on future long-term plans for the programme and enhance it further with updates or a review, and whether we will see a greater variety of jobs and roles. With the Tech Skills Accelerator programme (TeSA), which was launched in 2016, there are courses for mid-career jobseekers without relevant experience to train them to be software developers, data analysts and UX designers. International big tech companies like Google and IBM, as well as local employers, had joined in to provide courses and traineeships. Between April 2016 and September 2020, TeSA placed over 7,000 Singaporeans into tech jobs.

I hope to see plans by the Government to increase the availability of such mid-career training and placement programmes for the tech sector, particularly for mid-career job seekers who are currently facing difficulties. I believe this would help to alleviate some of the manpower crunch for the tech sector, while helping more mid-career job seekers to land skills and jobs in a rapidly growing industry. So, for those who are in this age group, there are ample opportunities to upgrade your skills set, acquire new skills and help you rise up to meet the challenges. Globalisation and digitalisation open up new chapters in our life. We see many who were able to switch careers so that they do not get trapped in sunset industries.

Another group that is understandably anxious would be the students who have just graduated or are graduating into the pandemic – the University, Polytechnic and ITE graduates. I am glad to note that from April 2021, demand for SGUnited Traineeships or attachments has eased as fresh graduates found other traineeships or full-time employment opportunities. Others take on contracts for a year or so.

But some are still having trouble landing full-time permanent jobs and are relying on internships and side projects. This is currently a global problem for all graduating cohorts, as companies worldwide scale back on headcounts. They also face competition from other Singaporeans who are also looking for jobs. And in taking up side projects and gigs online, they may also find themselves coming up against competition from overseas. Globalisation or its association with foreign talent flows cannot be faulted for this. Rather, the situation arises because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, many local students had benefited from exchange programmes and internships overseas. It is a global competition because the whole world is in the grip of this pandemic.

Mr Speaker, I think it is important to acknowledge the uncertainties and fears in the current economic climate. But it will do us no good to maintain a pessimistic outlook, because that will only cause us to miss out on other opportunities that have arisen from the crisis. Indeed, many have found themselves having to put their dream jobs on hold and taking up entirely new and unexpected career paths.

Some young residents became part-time swabbers to earn an income, unexpectedly discovering their interest in healthcare and in that sector. Such stories are, in fact, quite common. Singaporeans across different generations have gone through different crises where they had to rechart their pathways due to the limitations of those times, for example, during the Asian Financial Crisis or even in the post-Independence days. Today, many may find themselves sharing similar emotions of disappointment and anxiety. But the difference is we have a lot more resources today than our parents and grandparents did, and we can afford to remain much more optimistic, as long as we manage our expectations and do our best with the opportunities that are available.

Let us enhance our efforts to strengthen our Singaporean Core of workers. I would first like to take this opportunity to convey my appreciation to the Government for making the significant decision of enshrining TAFEP fair employment practices into the law. Fair employment is a subject that has always been very close to my heart. Only when there is equal accessibility to employment opportunities can we then talk about creating good jobs for all Singaporeans. Now that TAFEP has been given more powers to enforce penalties against workplace and employment discrimination, this will alleviate some of the anxieties experienced by our older workers and minorities.

( In English ): Mr Speaker, my next point is on PMETs working in sectors where foreign talent is perceived to be a threat. I work in the financial sector and I do talk with those in the sector as they share their lived experiences. I can empathise with them and their concerns.

Understandably, some sectors, especially the ICT sector, face a talent crunch too. Employers find that, in the short term, it takes too much resources and time to hire and train a Singaporean. So, they would prefer to hire an experienced and skilled foreigner. With the recent tightening of foreign manpower restrictions and newly enshrined anti-discrimination laws coming, I believe, gradually but surely, more Singaporeans should, eventually, find their anxieties easing. But this does not solve the immediate problem of a skills shortage in the sector.

In the financial sector, for example, in the foreign banks, the deliberations on foreign staff recruitment are done at the bank's global HQ level to fill any shortage of skilled staff and are based on specific global business needs and internal human capital movement requirements. Therefore, to ensure that at all levels of the bank, the locals will eventually be the majority, may not be possible, given the global nature of these decisions.

All said, I must point out that there are Singaporeans who are holding senior roles in the foreign banks based on merit and it is not necessarily a situation where foreigners are the only ones dominating the senior positions. I, for one, know, and even if you do a quick search on Google and LinkedIn, it will show Singaporeans heading the business units or are in very senior positions in the Union Bank of Switzerland or UBS – I will not mention the names – even in Julius Baer, Deutsche Bank private banking, HSBC private banking and Pictet, and also Singaporeans holding front office positions, such as the Global Head of Treasury Markets at Standard Chartered Bank. I am sure there are many more.

And, again, with the recent tightening of foreign manpower restrictions and the newly enshrined anti-discrimination laws coming, some of these anxieties can be addressed where there are wrongful practices.

In addition, I would like to urge the Government to explore even the possibility of enhancing the Capability Transfer Programme. I think the Leader of the Opposition mentioned this, and I have mentioned this in my Adjournment Motions previously in 2019 and on various occasions.

I understand that I have been very persistent in this, but I believe it will bring about several benefits. Fewer companies are sending Singaporeans overseas for training in this climate. So, why not redeploy the funds to support the costs for employers to have their new and existing local hires receive training and mentorship under a more experienced and skilled foreign employee in the company? In the long run, this helps to build up the local talent core. It helps to reinforce the main purpose of having foreign talent in the first place, which is to help companies, including local employees, improve as a whole, not to steal our jobs. The foreign employee would receive a boost to his CV. It is a winning situation for all.

Mr Speaker, as we debate the issues of foreign talent policy and jobs, be mindful that globalisation of labour and talent has always been much slower to globalise, compared to via the movements of material goods and financial capital across countries. This is due to the complex nature of talent, the apprehension of domestic populations on attracting labour inputs from abroad and host the individual, either temporarily or permanently, near the location of the work to be performed.

For a variety of reasons, this has proven politically unpopular and nearly all countries place restrictions on migrations, Singapore included. But ongoing trends by MNCs and companies globally, via offshoring before and still now, build-up of "digital labour markets" have the potential to radically alter the global labour market, thus overshooting in foreign talent policy responses by any country may lead to more negative outcomes and, worse, it supports xenophobic and racist behaviours that can worsen domestically. These digital labour market platforms can connect workers worldwide with companies seeking to have tasks completed and, with technology, this can go beyond data entry and programming roles only. Worse, if the MNCs see Singapore’s hub status eroded because of too tight foreign talent policies or any signalling thereof in that direction.

And here I would like to refer to Mr Leong Mun Wai's suggestion earlier that he intends to recommend PRs and new citizenship numbers to be reduced, going forward. I just want to highlight that – and I think some of the previous speakers have mentioned this – the debate today is mainly about foreign manpower vis-a-vis our economic strategy. Immigration is a separate topic which covers a much broader range of imperatives. Immigration and work passes are separate regimes with different considerations. Immigration policy is very carefully calibrated. Potential applicants know that we are very strict in Singapore.

Our population growth over the last decade has been the lowest since Independence and we have kept the size of our PR population stable for years. Many of our new citizens and PRs are spouses of Singaporeans and parents of Singaporean children.

So, I would like to ask Mr Leong Mun Wai, does Mr Leong think that these family members of our fellow Singaporeans ought to wait longer?

There have been calls from Members of this House, including Members from the Workers' Party, for us to be more expedient in granting Permanent Residency, or PRs, and citizenships, especially for family members of Singaporeans. So, I think it is pertinent.

So, let me give an example from the ground. A 40-year-old resident, who is a Singaporean Citizen, works hard as a private hire car driver, has a Malaysian wife and children who want to be PRs. The question is, how long does Mr Leong want her and the children to wait before they can be granted PR status?

I think most of the Members in this Chamber have, from time to time, seen residents coming to them for help in this regard. And how long do you want their children to pay more for their school fees? So, I would like to pose that question to Mr Leong.

And to go on, I urge all, in Singapore, we need to channel our efforts positively towards building back better, which begins with an understanding that our challenges are complex and cannot be resolved by narrow ideology on globalisation and foreign talent policy. Understanding the complexity of modern society, the working relationship of democracy and capitalism, and recognising the prevalence of externalities are the first steps towards genuinely healing our social, economic and financial issues amid this current crisis.

For those broad reasons and various reasons I have mentioned in my speech, I am not able to support the Motion in the name of Mr Leong Mun Wai. I support the Motion in the name of the Minister for Finance, as it affirms that Singapore needs to stay open and connected to the world; it acknowledges the anxieties whilst, at the same time, laying out the existing calls for enhancements needed for policies to secure the livelihoods of Singaporeans in the long run. The latter, too, does not stir up racism and xenophobia and is mindful of securing Singaporean jobs and livelihoods in the long run.

Mr Speaker: Mr Saktiandi, you can wrap up.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat: To wrap up, Mr Speaker, our success in globalisation is not something that came with the drop of a hat. As far back as in February 1972, our then-Foreign Minister S Rajaratnam visualised embracing the world as our hinterland. We were faced with many challenges but, instead of crying foul, we came up with new ideas and bravely ventured ahead. We had to change our mindset from being an entrepot centre to looking globally. We were put on the path to be a Global City.

That vision, that wisdom, has helped to put us where we are today. I quote the late Mr Rajaratnam in his speech saying: "But the Global City, now in its infancy, is the child of modern technology. It is the city that electronic communications, supersonic planes, giant tankers and modern economic and industrial organisation have made inevitable. Whether the Global City would be a happier place than the megalopolis out of whose crumbling ruins it is emerging will depend on how wisely and boldly we shape its direction and growth."

Very true, words to remember: how we can be a happier place would depend on how wisely and boldly we shape its direction and growth. That is what we are called to do today. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.

9.10 pm

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, we are debating today about how to create an environment that can provide better jobs and improve livelihoods for our fellow Singaporeans. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector has grown more than three-fold over the last two decades and employs well over 150,000 people. It has one of the highest proportions of PMET vacancies that employers say they are unable to fill with locals. Consequently, the industry also employs among the highest proportion of foreign professionals.

Before continuing, I would like to declare my interest as a founder and director of a local IT solutions and consulting company. My conversations with people in the industry and my observations as an IT practitioner over the past 20 years inform the policy proposals that I am advancing today.

Sir, the tech industry plays a critical role in Singapore’s economy and our relevance to the world. My speech will focus on skills and employment issues surrounding this industry, although some of these issues will be similar to those faced in other industries. I will analyse the reasons for the skills gaps and manpower shortage in the ICT sector; suggest ways in which the education system can be re-orientated to play a greater part in narrowing this gap; and propose ways the Government can address some of the imbalances that Singaporean professionals encounter in the workplace vis-à-vis foreign professionals.

We constantly hear employers complain that while there are many job opportunities in the industry, there are not enough suitable professionals, both local and foreign, who have the skills to fill those positions. On the other hand, some Singaporean IT professionals have shared with me how they have been passed over for promotions or employment despite their best efforts to attend training and improve themselves.

Singapore is an attractive work destination and often a stepping stone for foreigners. Many are willing to work longer hours at lower wages to pick up skills and experience, before moving on to countries like the US, Canada and Australia. When I was a senior consultant at a multinational technology consulting firm, I saw many resumes of experienced foreigners seeking junior positions just to get hired.

The admission of so many entry-level foreign ICT professionals over the past 20 years and the commoditisation of core skills, such as computer programming, has put downward pressures on wages in this industry. Any Singaporean starting out as a software developer would be competing with many similarly skilled foreigners for jobs and promotions. This, coupled with the perception of crony hiring and discrimination against locals, prompted many Singaporeans over the past two decades to veer away from the ICT industry in favour of other sectors, leading to an even greater dearth of talent in this industry.

In the past few years, with the growth in data science, robotics and artificial intelligence, the demand for deep tech skills has increased dramatically. Companies are now willing to pay top dollar for data scientists and cybersecurity specialists. The NUS Graduate Employment Survey found that fresh graduates from the School of Computing have the highest gross monthly salary among all graduates, with the 75th percentile earning $6,316, higher than doctors, lawyers and business graduates. This reflects both the high demand and the short supply of such graduates.

The Minister for Manpower said in July that 6,000 jobs remained unfilled in the infocomm sector and there are not enough locals to fill the available jobs. In an interview last year, the Minister in charge of the Smart Nation Initiative said that the infocomm space will require 60,000 more professionals over the next three years. An Amazon Web Services (AWS) report earlier this year highlighted that Singapore would need an additional 1.2 million digital workers by 2025 to remain competitive.

Yet, the supply of local tech talent is not keeping up. Replying to my Parliamentary Question on 26 July, the Minister for Education said that the number of places in information and digital technologies undergraduate degree courses in local Universities increased from 800 in 2010 to 3,100 last year.

This is still not going to solve the manpower crunch in this industry. With 3,100 graduates and 20,000 new tech jobs created a year, our local graduates would not be able to fill a fifth of these roles. This will lead to a greater demand for foreigners to make up for the shortfall. The pattern of overdependence on foreign professionals will continue. While it is laudable that so many tech jobs are being created, how much does this benefit Singaporean workers if our people are not equipped with the skills to fill them? It will lead to disappointment by both the companies investing in Singapore and our own people. We should have started a bigger push to encourage and enable more students to study IT two decades ago.

Be that as it may, there is now an urgent need to reorientate our schools to prepare Singaporean students for career opportunities in technology, so as to create a stronger pipeline of local talent. Students who are interested in working with computers should be encouraged early to pursue IT as a course of study and an eventual career.

Primary schools should introduce all students to computational thinking and basic coding as part of their core curriculum from Primary 1, although it should not be made an examination subject, as this may kill interest in it. This could spark their early interest in tech and will help them and their parents choose suitable Secondary schools to further their interests. We would not be alone in doing this. Estonia, which is recognised as one of the most advanced digital societies in the world, started teaching all first graders to code almost a decade ago.

Currently, only 22 Secondary schools offer computing as an "O" level subject and this is available only from Secondary 3. Moving forward, all Secondary schools should offer computing as an "O" level subject, and it should be extended to the "N" levels. Computing, just like History, Geography and Literature, should be taught from Secondary 1, so that all students can try their hand at it and make an informed decision at the end of Secondary 2 if they want to pursue it further at the upper Secondary level.

Schools should develop programmes and mentorships to widen students' exposure to careers in technology, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds and also girls, given the traditionally lower female participation in the industry. More scholarships and grants should be awarded to students who choose to study Computing. Tertiary institutions should connect with industries to showcase careers in tech and encourage students to pursue them.

Because there are now so few Computer Science degree places in our local Universities vis-à-vis the demand, we are seeing cut-throat competition for admission and many qualified applicants are being denied places. Take the School of Computing in the National University of Singapore, for example. The "A" level subject prerequisites for Computer Science (CS) courses are a H2 pass in Computing, Mathematics, further Mathematics or Physics, or a good pass in H1 Mathematics.

This sounds quite achievable until we look at the indicative grade profiles of applicants offered places last year. Both the 90th and the 10th percentile of applicants offered places scored four As for their "A" levels – essentially, perfect scores. I doubt tech companies really need students who aced all four content subjects in Junior College. Setting such a high bar for admission could mean missing out on many students who were initially interested in pursuing a tech career but may have decided to switch their focus to other industries after failing in their bid to study CS in local Universities.

Institutes of Higher Learning should move more quickly to increase their intake of CS majors and should admit more Singaporeans who can demonstrate a passion for technology and meet the prerequisite standards for the course. ITEs can also be a source of local tech talent. Tech, after all, is not the exclusive domain of University or Polytechnic graduates.

To be sure, I am not calling for a lowering of standards just to admit more students, but an expansion of opportunities to study CS. Minister Lawrence Wong said in his speech earlier that relying on a local pipeline is not enough and that if we increase the intake of people in ICT too sharply, there will be complaints of shortage in other sectors.

Of course, I am not advocating that everybody goes immediately into ICT, because that would be impractical. But if many high-growth, high-paying jobs are in the ICT sector, is it wrong to provide more educational opportunities for our fellow Singaporeans in this sector and encourage more of them to consider careers in ICT?

We should place bigger bets on tech in order to seize the burgeoning opportunities ahead of us. Train ahead of demand, as my colleague, Mr Leon Perera proposed earlier. This way, more Singaporeans can benefit from the thousands of well-paying tech jobs that are going to be created in the years ahead. It will also attract more companies to set up research and development centres in Singapore because of the availability of talent. This virtuous cycle will benefit both our economy and our people.

I would now like to address some of the imbalances that many local professionals face in the workplace. Sir, we are a small economy in a very big world. If we want to throw open our doors to global talent, our industries' demands for skilled labour can probably be met, but at what cost?

As early as 1997, when I was interning at a large local tech firm, I was surprised to discover that almost all the programmers in the IT department were foreigners. More than 20 years on, the situation is even more extreme in many IT firms and banks, where many management positions, especially in technology departments, are occupied by foreigners.

I am not asking the Government to mollycoddle our workers, nor are Singaporeans expecting to be "bubble wrapped" from all foreign competition. We should remain open to foreign talent, but only those who are suitably skilled and earn their positions based on merit. Singaporeans want to be self-reliant and succeed on their own merit. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the Government to ensure that Singaporeans do not become victims of discrimination in their own country.

The world has changed and employment regulations and practices need to adapt to keep pace. The Government must commit to stamping out discrimination in the hiring and promotion process in companies, especially in firms where the competition for attractive and well-paying jobs is keener.

As a society, we claim to have zero tolerance for corruption and racism. However, there are other forms of corruption, like cronyism and nepotism, which have reared their ugly heads in the corporate environment. Some companies have turned a blind eye to their foreign managers "hiring their own kind" instead of the best qualified candidates. This has sapped the morale of honest, talented and hardworking local employees who were hoping for advancement in their careers.

Many Members of Parliament would have heard anecdotal reports from constituents about foreign managers hiring compatriots who were less qualified than locals. You, Mr Speaker, were one of the first Ministers to acknowledge this disturbing phenomenon in the Committee of Supply (COS) debate in 2013, when I also raised this concern in one of my COS cuts. Minister Tan See Leng just acknowledged that he knows these things happen.

These acts are difficult to prove and hard to catch because they can be very subtle. It is easy for the offending managers to justify that a particular candidate was the "right fit" without doing an objective, competency-based assessment against other candidates.

In Singaporean culture, hiring a less qualified candidate on account of their cultural background is considered discrimination. It runs against the principles of meritocracy. However, in many cultures around the world, this is the normal way society works. While it is not my place to judge other cultures, I think Singaporeans expect that local culture and norms are adhered to while operating in our country. This should not be difficult because most of our international friends in Singapore already do this.

Companies which operate in Singapore should adopt a zero-tolerance stance against cronyism in the workplace. This should be reflected in each company's corporate ethos and codes of conduct. Companies should provide channels for whistleblowing and encourage reporting of such practices. Anti-discrimination legislation should provide the MOM powers to prosecute employers found engaging in discriminatory practices in hiring and promotions. Although this is hard to prove, it could serve as a deterrent in egregious cases.

To encourage companies to demonstrate their commitment to promoting more qualified women, minorities and Singaporeans in their senior leadership, listed companies in Singapore should be required to report the gender, racial and national composition of their boards as part of their ESG (environmental, social and governance) impact reporting. I note that Singapore Exchange Regulation is already proposing to step up efforts to enhance board diversity. This should be stepped up further.

Foreign MNCs and startups which benefit from Government incentives and schemes should be made to submit yearly reports to MOM of the gender, race and nationality of employees at each level of their organisational hierarchy. These confidential reports should be shared with the Parliamentary Standing Select Committee on foreign employment, which the Leader of the Opposition proposed earlier.

Companies which apply for Employment Passes and S Passes should be required to submit to MOM a breakdown of employee numbers by nationality at each level of seniority within the company and in the department that the work pass applicant is being hired into. This will allow MOM to objectively assess the concentration risk of foreigners from any one country before issuing them work passes. MOM should make transparent its criteria to determine what is an acceptable threshold for each industry and size of company. Companies must provide a reasonable justification if they cannot adhere to this threshold.

None of what I have proposed should cause much inconvenience to companies. They just need to run a simple query against their employee database to come up with the numbers. It will not be a deterrent to invest or set up business in Singapore, since we are not imposing any hard quotas on them or preventing them from hiring foreigners. Yet, this level of transparency will nudge companies to relook their HR policies and expand the opportunities they provide for the hiring and advancement of local talent.

Mr Speaker, I have spoken about how we can address the local manpower shortage in the ICT sector, create a stronger pipeline of skilled ICT professionals and provide a more level playing field for Singaporeans. These solutions are neither easy nor cheap, but they are necessary if we are to remain a competitive economy and a cohesive society in the decades to come.

Sir, I support the Motion as amended by Mr Pritam Singh.

Mr Speaker: Prof Hoon Hian Teck.

9.26 pm

Prof Hoon Hian Teck (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, a debate on the impact of Singapore's foreign talent policy on jobs and livelihoods needs to confront three realities: the "lump of labour" fallacy, the role of foreign direct investment in job creation and the Mozart effect in the face of a declining citizen workforce due to a total fertility rate that is below replacement level.

The lump of labour fallacy is the mistaken idea that there is always a fixed number of jobs. Instead, the number of jobs in an economy is variable and determined by the interactions between the pace of job creation and the pace of job destruction.

The role of foreign direct investment recognises that in a small open economy like Singapore, with the right institutions and business-friendly policies, an increase in the size of the labour force boosts the return to capital and thus attracts multinational corporations to set up shop and create new job vacancies.

The Mozart effect recognises that if talent is randomly distributed across a given population, then the bigger the size of the population, the greater the absolute number of talented people.

As an organising framework, to think about the Motion before us, it is useful to characterise the Singapore economy as a country that is linked to the global economy via technological diffusion: a process that is facilitated by strong cross-border exchanges of goods, capital and people.

First, the lump of labour fallacy. It is a fact that even as the size of Singapore's labour force has expanded over the decades since Independence so that there are more people looking for jobs, the number of job vacancies to be filled has increased. The pace of job creation over the decades reflects the changing comparative advantage of the economy.

In the 1960s to the 1980s, as factories were built, the expanding manufacturing sector provided jobs to Singapore citizens even as the size of the foreign workforce expanded. In the 1990s to the present decade, the financial sector expanded and also created new job vacancies. Moreover, real wages were, on the whole, rising even though the economy faced adverse economic shocks that caused recessions in successive decades since 1965.

It should be acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis that started in 2008 most likely had lingering effects on pulling down the wage growth in the years 2009 and 2010. But other than that, over the decade as a whole, it is the case that as standard of living has risen, real wages, by and large, have gone up. Certainly, from the year 2000 onwards, there came to be some divergence. The better-skilled workers continued to see rising wages whereas in the 10 years since 2000, the low-wage workers have seen their wages somewhat decline. But the country has dealt with that and our focus today is on foreign talent policy.

So, overall, with technological diffusion, because we have stayed connected to the global economy, we have been able to catch up with the US standard of living, starting from less than a third of the level of US purchasing-power-parity-adjusted GDP per capita in 1965.

Second, the role of foreign direct investment in job creation. I find it useful, in my own effort to understand the Singapore Story, to note that even as our total labour force increased by more than three times from less than a million in 1978 to over three million in 2013, the stock of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) per worker in real terms, adjusted for inflation, increased by more than 10 times. So, from 1978 to 2013, the year when I was looking at the trend, total labour force increased three times but total FDI stock increased by more than 10 times. So, the stock of Foreign Direct Investment per worker more than increased.

Then, from 2013 to 2017, just to check the more recent data, 2017 is the latest year that I have found publicly available data on the stock of FDI. That is in the Singapore Yearbook of Statistics 2019. The latest year of the data on the stock of FDI is for 2017. You would find that the growth of the FDI stock just over this period, 2013 to 2017, again far exceeded the growth rate of the foreign workforce in Singapore.

Overall then, total FDI has grown much faster than total labour force. Moreover, you would find that the services sector share of the total FDI stock – because we have data as well of FDI stock divided across industry, manufacturing, services, and broken down – has been increasing over the years. In 2017, more than 50% of the total FDI stock went to financial and insurance services, one of the industries in there. So, manufacturing has been shrinking in terms of its command of the total share of FDI, even as total FDI has gone up, which means disproportionately more of it has gone into the services sector and, in particular, the financial and insurance services, where many of our PMEs find their employment.

A direct benefit of the strong presence of multinational corporations (MNCs) that undertake the FDI in the Singapore economy comes from what is known as the employer-size wage effect. Large firms, which many MNCs tend to be, are more productive and they pay more for observationally identical workers. So, two persons who graduated from the same university, the one who works at the MNC, holding everything constant, tends to be paid more than at a smaller firm. That is empirical fact widely acknowledged now in the labour economics literature.

It is true that in the early stages of recovery from a recession, small firms provide a more rapid pace of job creation than large firms in the early stage of an economic recovery. However, in the later stages of economic recovery, the pace of job creation tends to be more rapid at large firms and workers enjoy pay rises when they join these large firms.

So, that is a huge advantage that we have got, that even as we have expanded our labour force, the number showed that the increase in the stock of FDI really has been huge. And that has been a great help in both creating good jobs and overall providing better wages.

My final point – the Mozart effect in the face of a declining citizen workforce because of the below replacement total fertility rate. In the next phase of Singapore’s economic development, it is not enough to rely on technologies developed abroad. We must move from imitation to innovation just to maintain trend growth. Much of the catch-up phase in the technological diffusion is probably nearly over. So, in the next stage, innovation will have to drive productivity growth.

While MNCs still play an important part in creating new technologies, we need them both for the jobs with better pay and also their part in creating new technology because they also do R&D. A bigger share of the source of growth would have to come from productivity gains achieved by SMEs that are successful in their innovations. Working in an MNC might be a prelude to stepping out to launch a new business venture since moving between departments in an MNC exposes a worker to different facets of running a business.

A shift in our own education system towards preparing students to cope with novelties and picking themselves up after failures will also help to increase the supply of entrepreneurs to boost the SME sector.

However, as an empirical matter, SMEs exit their respective industries more frequently than large firms. Many new business ventures end up in failure but, among the ones that survive, their growth is higher than the average growth rate.

Given the high probability of failure in any innovative activity, having a large supply of workers who turn into entrepreneurs is necessary to ensure a sufficiently high aggregate rate of innovation that would need to drive the productivity growth, to allow us to attain trend growth as a mature economy.

The demographic transition, however, to a declining citizen workforce carries the implication that it will be difficult to sustain the pace of indigenous innovation necessary to maintain the trend growth. Since it is people who create ideas, a declining workforce ultimately leads to slower productivity growth. It would appear then, just to maintain the trend growth, keeping the size of the labour force from declining is of paramount importance.

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Sir, Singapore overcame the odds against it when it attained Independence by developing the right mindset and economic institutions capable of riding on the opportunities provided by the world. Even as it now faces the challenges of a growth transition, a demographic transition, technological disruptions and higher worker aspirations, it will be the ability to develop political consensus and supporting social and economic institutions to continue to embrace economic openness, not only to goods and capital but also to people, that will assure it of a future with a supply of good jobs and wages.

Therefore, I support Minister Lawrence Wong's Motion to secure Singaporean jobs and livelihoods while staying open and connected to the world, in order to grow and prosper, even as we focus on the other points made in the Motion. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

9.39 pm

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. Before I continue, I wish to declare that I am an educator at an institution of higher education, delivering courses in international trade and finance.

Last month, Ministers Ong Ye Kung and Tan See Leng provided thoughtful expositions about the benefits of free trade for economic growth and prosperity, and Prof Hoon Hian Teck has just done the same. Minister Ong has also shared with us his perspective – which I am convinced is deeply embedded in his intellectual DNA – as a trade negotiator, while simultaneously exposing us to the delicacy that is samsu. He also clearly articulated the Government’s position, that anxieties on jobs, while legitimate, are distinct from both FTAs, in general, and CECA, in particular.

In my contribution to this Motion, I will argue against the blanket claim that the precarity felt by our workers has absolutely nothing to do with free trade or, for that matter, FTAs.

The proposition that free trade is a net positive for national welfare has long and illustrious roots, dating back to the 18th and early 19th century. In my courses, I teach this idea in my very first lecture: that countries are better off when they specialise and trade, instead of trying to take on the burden of producing everything within its own borders. This is the case even for an advanced economy, in possession of technological capabilities to produce all manner of goods more efficiently than others can. The conclusion is counter-intuitive, but once one embraces the logic, it is incontrovertible, and the insight deeply satisfying. Indeed, this insight has been characterised as both non-trivial and elusive.

In my second lecture, however, my students quickly learn that free trade is not an unadorned good. Even in the simplest of models, trading relationships between two countries will throw up both winners and losers. In general, for capital-rich, advanced economies, the gainers will, unsurprisingly, be industry, leaving the lot of workers worse off. By a similar token, higher-skilled labour in developed countries tend to benefit from trade opening, while the lower-skilled ones are often left behind.

But this unequal outcome need not be the death knell for free trade. In the longer run, as workers displaced by trade find new jobs and reallocate to in-demand sectors, wages and employment would even out. Furthermore, since the gains outweigh the losses, it is entirely possible for winners – in this example, capitalists or higher-skilled professionals – to compensate the losers, the workers, at least, in part. Doing so leaves everyone better off and helps ease the transition to a more liberal trading regime.

And there you have it: the case for free trade, which has survived many generations of subsequent elaborations, with bells and whistles thrown in. Thus, as long as we keep in mind the pressing need to ease the distributional consequences, we can always build a national consensus in support of trade liberalisation.

Alas, in the real world that we inhabit, many policymakers have often forgotten this important imperative. So, globally, the pursuit of trading relations has often left losing parties to fend for themselves.

When Singapore was a relatively poor, underdeveloped economy, this mattered a lot less. After all, the gainers in this case were our masses of low-skilled labour, hungry for jobs and opportunities that would be ushered in by embracing globalisation. With so many with so little to lose, it was straightforward to build a large coalition in support of free trade.

But we are no longer poor, and this complicates matters. Today, the major gainers in our nation’s stance on free trade are the high-skilled and those with access to capital. These groups benefit disproportionately well from our open trading regime, leaving our less well-off working class – now, decidedly, the minority – in an even worse position. It should, therefore, be of little surprise that, all over the world, we have witnessed populist challenges to globalisation: from the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, to the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, to the more recent Gilets Jaunes in France.

And, Mr Speaker, may I venture that the backlash against CECA also has its roots in the perceived inequality of the deal for our local workers. After all, this all comes down to the recognition that free trade and free trade agreements are hardly the same thing. Many of these agreements have been concluded with insufficient attention to the distributional consequences for the minority that has been hard done by the deal. As a result, we have ventured from the rules of thumb on compensation that economists have routinely advocated to secure support for free trade.

To be completely fair to governments worldwide, including this one, the standard prescription for compensation has not been completely ignored. The United States first enacted the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The EU created a Globalisation Adjustment Fund in 2007. Closer to our neighbourhood, South Korea rolled out an adjustment programme targeted at SMEs that same year.

But in many instances, these programmes do not do enough. Qualification criteria for assistance tend to be stringent, and those who ultimately benefit from such programmes turn out to be only a small fraction of those who have lost jobs. Some programmes are not even specifically targeted at displacement due to trade and, as a result, underemphasise the importance of retraining and reskilling.

Our equivalent adjustment programme is WSG and SkillsFuture, although these are not explicitly targeted at addressing trade-related job displacement alone. I had previously spoken, during this year’s Committee of Supply debates, on potential refinements of our reskilling and reemployment programmes, including rolling out redundancy insurance, and making the Jobs Growth Incentive and Professional Conversion Programme permanent features of our policy landscape.

Other Workers’ Party colleagues have also spoken of challenges faced by our workers as they adapt to changes wrought by trade, such as Aljunied Member Sylvia Lim on underemployment and my Sengkang colleague, Louis Chua, on expanding worker protections. But suffice to say that there is more we can do to provide an end-to-end jobs safety net that can help our workers cope with pressures from globalisation.

This renewed attention to adjustment costs and distributional consequences has also come under greater re-examination even within the economics profession. This was prompted, in no small part, by the harsh realities of the so-called “China Shock,” which accompanied the entry of China into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The comfortable consensus in support of free trade that had existed for so long began to be seriously questioned. Emerging evidence from the widespread displacement of workers in industrialised economies, especially in the manufacturing sector, where China has proven to be a formidable competitor, revealed that output, wages and employment losses in sectors particularly exposed to imported Chinese goods tend to be large and significant.

These effects were not limited solely to sectors confronting Chinese import competition. The spillovers left whole regions – which used to hum with economic activity and offer respectable middle-class jobs – decimated, leaving behind armies of unemployed, disaffected workers, while also inducing declines in the wages of even those workers who worked in unrelated sectors.

With this general preamble on the merits, and demerits, of free trade agreements, it is appropriate for us to turn to a more careful examination of CECA. While the deal may, prima facie, look like a free trade agreement just like any other, it actually carries its own set of idiosyncrasies, both in practical terms and for our nation at this moment in our history.

For starters, India is much, much larger than our Little Red Dot. This is not just in geographic size, which is a given. But it also dominates us in terms of economic size. India’s output, measured in a common currency, is almost eight times larger than ours; and, even more evidently, in terms of population.

One important lesson that economists have learned from China’s 2001 WTO entry is that, unlike the trade liberalisation experiences of the 1970s through 1990s, gaining access to a massive market also means accepting the entry of a massive labour force.

When there is a flood of new, lower-wage workers joining an industry that is newly open to trade, higher-wage workers that have been displaced are not easily absorbed into the rest of the economy. Moreover, we should recognise that India is also at a far earlier stage of development journey than we are.

Another important consequence of trade opening is that, over time, the prices paid to inputs of production – wages, rents or interest – will tend to meet somewhere in the middle. With wages so much lower in India compared to Singapore, this could lead to a sharp downward shift in our local workers’ earnings, before some sort of convergence is achieved.

Importantly, some adjustment of this nature will occur even if foreign workers do not relocate to local shores. The upshot of trade opening is that minimum salary floors for foreign employment pass holders will only offer limited succour, and the growth of local wages for those in the same sector will still be reduced, so long as we begin from a relatively higher starting point. Hence, even for Singaporeans who do not lose their jobs outright as a result of CECA, or any other FTA, there is still a chance that their salaries could face a significant hit, if they happen to work in sectors more exposed to trade liberalisation. This is our very own version of the China Shock.

All this is not to say that CECA is fundamentally flawed, nor that it is the main factor driving our workers’ anxieties which, as my other Workers’ Party colleagues have elaborated, are more because of our labour market and social protection policies.

Still, there is little reason why we should not seek to refine the deal, especially in light of the ongoing third review of the pact. Doing so will bring us back to the standard remedy I mentioned earlier: that gainers compensate losers. Do we have just cause to believe that this has been the case for CECA, or for that matter, all our FTAs?

It is unclear if companies that have enjoyed enhanced access to the foreign market as a result of our trade agreements necessarily pay higher taxes as a consequence. Nor is it clear that professionals recruited from foreign nations to work in Singapore systematically do, either. When all is said and done, it appears, from my vantage point, that the Government has been the one picking up the slack, via WSG and other adjustment schemes. While this is important, unless the winners from trade are definitively contributing a share consistent with their boosted incomes, this will end up shifting the burden of supporting displaced workers back to the Singaporean taxpayer.

Let me also take one step away from the economics and touch on the impact of FTAs from an institutional and sociocultural perspective, something that has been shared by my Sengkang colleague He Ting Ru.

As this House is well aware, Singapore is a small island bereft of natural resources, which has meant that our success has always been because of our people. As a developing country after Independence, we invested heavily in educating our workforce, producing hardworking, well-trained workers that could hold their own in competition against the rest of the world.

At the same time, we refined and adapted the legal institutions and civil services that we inherited as a British colony. We imbued our people with a sense of national pride, identity and common purpose. These did not spring from nowhere. We had to inculcate such values, slowly, over decades, via national education, patriotic songs, a shared history and, yes, our common love for food and shopping.

Do our FTAs and labour market policies that encourage large immigration flows compromise these key contributors to our past prosperity? While the jury is still out, there are concerns about the entry of workers with less-than-stellar educational qualifications, the presence of a sizeable but temporary expatriate labour force with a limited understanding of our unique national identity, and the dilution of the cultural capital that has hitherto been so central to our success.

In my view, these elements bear closer scrutiny and Prime Minister Lee’s announcement during this year’s NDP Rally t hat the Government will gradually tighten EP and S Pass criteria is a heartening step in this direction.

The promise behind FTAs is that it will lead to increased economic opportunities, in both trade and investment, traditional strong suits for our economy, accompanied by the creation of more jobs for Singaporeans, on net, as a result. Such agreements also allow us to contribute positively, albeit indirectly, to advancing the development of our trading partners. These aspirations are all laudable.

Even so, we need clear-eyed evaluations of the benefits and costs of all our FTAs, CECA included. We need to know whether these agreements have been detrimental to the job prospects of some of our local PMETs, who are already anxious about automation-related retrenchment. We need to know whether local credentials and qualifications issued to our graduates may inadvertently become undervalued, relative to foreign ones, because of mutual recognition clauses. We need to affirm our tenuously employed workers, those who have been involuntarily forced into food delivery and private car hire jobs, that FTAs do not open up loopholes to excessive labour inflows.

All such assertions should be based on evidence, obtained through careful analysis and deliberation. I call on this Government to institute a freedom of information initiative that will guarantee the full release of accurate and complete trade, production and labour market data, insofar as they pertain to the study of our FTAs.

This should be at any level of disaggregation requested, albeit suitably anonymised, if necessary. I should note that this is a routine practice in countries worldwide, from advanced economies like Australia, the European Union and the United States, to developing nations as diverse as Brazil, Moldova and Sri Lanka. Such a move would permit our researchers and interested members of the public to come to their own conclusions and correct misperceptions that this Government has routinely railed against. If we truly believe that FTAs have been good for our country, we have nothing to fear in releasing these data for further study and scrutiny.

I support the amended Motion advanced by the Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh.

9.58 pm

Mr Abdul Samad (Nominated Member): Sir, I am too engrossed in today's debate. I am not so sure I am the right person to talk but, nevertheless, I have the duty to speak for the workers.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to commend Minister Lawrence Wong’s Motion “Securing Singaporeans Jobs and Livelihoods". This is so, as it directly impacts workers who are at the heart of all that we do in the Labour Movement. While acknowledging the role of foreign talent, I would like to focus my energy more on how to help our fellow workers to seize and secure the available good-paying jobs from any big companies that offer them.

The Labour Movement believes that jobs are the best welfare and full employment is the best protection for our workers.

The unions and Labour Movement are constantly looking at how to help workers achieve better employment and employability outcomes in the long run.

Sir, I had highlighted the importance of training and workforce transformation in my Budget speech earlier this year and reiterated that upskilling is key to cultivating a strong Singaporean Core during my speech on 27 July. I would, once again, like to call upon employers to be proactive in equipping your workforce with relevant skills to meet the evolving needs of your industry now and the future. The unions will work with you to rally the workforce, allay any fears of changes and provide constant ground-up feedback.

Let me add that when I mention workers or workforce, it also includes our Professionals, Managers and Executives, in short PMEs.

Due to COVID-19 and its impact on businesses, we see that mature PMEs aged 40 and above are more disadvantaged due to their age and seniority. As much as we have debated and implemented policies and programmes to better support PMEs, there is still a need to protect our PMEs against egregious companies who exploit the system, treat workers unfairly. The unions would not hesitate to deal with such companies to ensure PMEs receive fair hiring opportunities and are treated fairly when in employment.

On the broader topic of workplace discrimination, NTUC will work closely with our tripartite partners in the Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness to improve workplace fairness. However, I am aware that not all workplace discrimination can be resolved through legislation. The unions will continue to play an important role to work closely with employers to resolve workplace grievances.

Sir, if there is one thing that we do best here in Singapore, compared to any other country in the world, it is tripartism. It has remained to be our tried and tested formula to ensure social and economic stability and success. As such, NTUC and the unions look forward to working together with our tripartite partners to tackle the next bound of workforce challenges and build an inclusive workforce.

Sir, I am heartened with Minister Lawrence Wong's earlier sharing and stand in support of the Motion “Securing Singaporeans' Jobs and Livelihoods", not forgetting the importance of every FTA, as we believe it will benefit Singapore and Singaporeans. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Mr Raj Joshua Thomas. Mr Edward Chia. Ms Mariam Jaafar. Mr Cheng Hsing Yao. Do we know if any of them are coming in?

10.02 pm

Mr Cheng Hsing Yao (Nominated Member): Speaker, Singapore has excelled as a regional hub for businesses and talents for a number of business sectors. A few of Singapore's success factors are: one, public policies that prioritise the long-term interests of Singapore; two, pragmatic execution of public policies; three, open and multicultural society; four, in the face of competition, we always choose to level up by improving ourselves; and five, never wasting a crisis to emerge stronger.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a huge crisis for us but, through the methodical way, we have handled it. It is beginning to turn into a great opportunity. We are one of the few Asia Pacific countries that have a real plan for transiting into an endemic COVID-19.

Global Investors have seen not just the resilience of the economy, but also the resilience of the society and the people of Singapore. We can now see the conditions for Singapore to develop into an important regional or even global hub for the technology sector. In due course, we might become a hub for the pharma-medical and sustainability sectors as well.

However, opportunities come and go. They seldom come around a second time. When we have the chance to develop both the breadth and depth of a desirable industry cluster, we should do so quickly and decisively. Once we have achieved the ecosystem of companies and talents, we will likely continue to attract even more investments. Conversely, if we were hesitant or slow to act, the ecosystem takes root somewhere else, future investments and talent will be drawn there instead.

One of the most important considerations for businesses to locate or expand their HQ operations or R&D centres in Singapore is the availability of the right talent pool to support their growth. Mathematically, the size of our local talent pool is insufficient to meet their needs. This is a genuine concern of many corporation executives, who are further unnerved by anti-foreigner public discourse. If our total workforce cannot meet the needs of companies, they will move out. All the jobs that could have been taken up by Singaporeans and foreign workers will be lost.

Thus, as a society, we need to embrace the concept that foreign talent and labour are complementary to our local talent and labour. We seem to take it for granted that people always want to come to Singapore to live and work.

Today, we remain attractive, but our attractiveness is relative. It depends as much on what we do as what our present and future competitors do. One critical trend to note is how digital connectivity has facilitated working from home. "Home", in this context, need not be in Singapore, it can be anywhere. The person competing for a job need not be physically in Singapore. There is no stopping this trend. This will heighten the competition for businesses, investments and talents among cities and facilitate the emergence of new and credible competitor cities to Singapore in the future.

To conclude, managing a complementary local and foreign workforce is a complex and emotive endeavour. It requires careful calibration. We also need to be mindful at the cusp of emerging stronger from the pandemic. We should try not to let great opportunities slip by.

In the course of my work, it is always nice to meet overseas executives who had previously worked in Singapore. They understand Singapore and still have positive regard for us. In a way, they continue to contribute even after they have left Singapore by helping to bridge understanding and forge business relationships for us, not unlike a school alumni.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Motion put forth by Minister for Finance, Mr Lawrence Wong.

Mr Speaker: Mr Edward Chia.

10.07 pm

Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, Sir, even though we are in a much better position than a year ago, some Singaporeans continue to be anxious about their jobs as global uncertainty continues. During my regular home visit discussions with residents at Zhenghua as well as my meetings with industry, there are employers and employees who are even concerned if newly-learned skillsets are adequate in view of continued disruptions and technological advancement. Some residents who are self-employed shared with me their concerns that “Work From Home” now means “Work From Anywhere” and clients are starting to offshore services.

The competition for jobs and opportunities is no longer confined to a geographical boundary. We are undergoing a significant transformation, and providing national clarity on what we are doing to emerge more competitive and relevant is essential.

In my comments today I will be supporting the Motion that the Government has doubled down on our focus on workforce skills upgrading and job security; and this enables us to compete globally through strategic foreign trade agreements with greater confidence.

The Government has been reviewing and enhancing several core training schemes. For instance, the Training Support Package and Absentee Payroll were enhanced.

Over and above that, many other schemes, such as the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP), Place and Train Programme (PnT) and so on, were put in place. These were introduced to help support individuals and employers with skills upgrading opportunities that are directly linked to job placement.

A few weeks ago, at the National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee announced that there will be a new tribunal for workplace discrimination and the further enhancement of legislative powers for TAFEP in the Employment Act. This is such an important step to ensure fairness in the workplace when it comes to hiring – another key component in enhancing our workers' job security. Employers and employees will now be assured that the Government takes this issue very seriously.

In the spirit of continuous review and resolving the issue from all angles and addressing concerns upstream, I would like to suggest three more areas. The intent of these suggestions is to keep our people in jobs and create opportunities for progression. By doing so, we reduce the probability of displacement which creates greater distress for Singaporeans and considerably more resources for assistance. This approach is more sustainable for the Government, employers and employees.

The first is to provide a degree of longevity for those schemes that were enhanced last year, thereby giving our workers and employers confidence that the Government understands that their transition will take time. This level of commitment will translate well to the enterprise level and workers will have assurance that help will not be pulled back too soon. So, I am pleased to hear earlier from Minister Lawrence Wong that MOF is considering this. If the Government could explore the possibility of committing to a five-year period for these newer schemes, it would be helpful.

Building on that is my second proposal. I would like to suggest that existing Government schemes that support local employers to appoint consultancies, especially for business transformation, require the consultant to include relevant training for the employees in support of the identified strategies. By ensuring direct connectivity between employers' transformation and their employees' upskilling, rather than two separate activities, it maximises the return on investments for our grant schemes. There will be many details that need to be sorted out to make this happen. But I believe it would have a significant impact on how our workforce can see their training directly linked to their employers’ strategic direction.

My final proposal is to recommend mandatory training hours per year and to couple it with enhanced absentee payroll support to assist employers and employees with resources to continue to stay ahead of the disruption curve. This will reiterate and complement the Government’s existing and ongoing SkillsFuture initiatives, ensuring our workforce is future-ready through upskilling and reskilling.

With such a comprehensive suite of measures from skill investments to enhanced employer support and deeper legislative powers to reduce workplace discrimination, we can keep our borders open with confidence. To further mitigate the downsides of disruptions and the "work from anywhere" phenomenon, we need to grow and anchor jobs in Singapore. To do so, we need to grow and entrench employers.

Being open and connected is critical for Singapore’s competitiveness because many of our employers can only succeed if Singapore is strategically plugged into the global flow of trade, investments and people. Our FTAs are purposefully crafted and executed to ensure that our employers and workers benefit from such connectivity. It allows employers to have access to overseas markets for their products and services; and it allows for our employers to also source for skills and technologies to accelerate their capabilities. The benefits of these agreements ensure that Singapore, with our employers and our workers, are relevant in the global movement of economic activities which lead to value creation back home.

It is, therefore, highly disingenuous for the PSP to simply focus on one or two components of a single FTA to create unnecessary anxieties, especially when it has been addressed in Parliament. Hence, I completely disagree and am not in support of the Motion standing in the name of Mr Leong Mun Wai.

This is not about either the big picture or the small picture. But it is about the real and practical picture of how our workers make a living by Singapore remaining open to the world because we have been strengthening ourselves.

Let me share an example. Tunity Technologies is a home-grown employer in the business of RFID technology. This employer benefited from many MNCs in Singapore during their inception through winning business contracts that enabled them to deepen their R&D from the revenue opportunity. In the words of Ms Lim Peck Hui, Managing Director of Tunity, and I quote: “Tunity is chosen by MNCs facing the most challenging and complex RFID projects. Some of the MNCs include ExxonMobil, Katoen Natie, NEC and we are currently working with some Chinese MNCs like Yonyou for collaboration. Such collaboration allows Tunity to develop more IPs to serve them and their clients which, in turn, strengthens our expertise, experience and capabilities. Some of the collaborations bring Tunity's solutions beyond Singapore which, by ourselves, would not have been made possible. This has helped us grow over the past 18 years.”

Tunity exemplifies actually what Prof Hoon Hian Teck shared earlier on the need for SMEs to evolve from technology imitation to technology innovation and how staying open has enabled SMEs to do so.

In addition, Tunity has grown with their employees, done notable national projects, such as the National Gallery and National Heritage Board's inventory tracking systems, build intellectual property and, recently, secured another huge contract from another MNC in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, they have worked closely with IMDA under the Company Led Training Programme to provide upskilling, training and employment to mature PMEs. This example of Tunity truly illustrates how participating in the global economy has helped them grow. And as Tunity grew, they contributed further to our economy and society, hired local PMEs, creating a positive virtuous cycle.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Government has clearly done a lot for worker training to provide the skills to be relevant. Recent efforts to go further and enhance its powers to tackle workplace discrimination will go an even longer way in easing our workers’ minds on job security. This multi-pronged approach is important so that we can keep our borders open with confidence because our workforce is continually being prepared, ready and relevant.

Singapore cannot live in fear of how the world is changing. There are movements which focus only on the downsides of globalisation and I believe this is not a healthy conversation. There will always be challenges and we must be sensitive to them. We should focus on how to mitigate these concerns by regularly evolving our systems, structures and policies to enable our workforce to compete confidently. This is the best way to create more jobs, enhance wages and ensure our continued relevance in the global community.

Therefore, I rise in support of the Motion standing in the name of the Minister for Finance.

Mr Speaker: Minister Tan See Leng.

10.18 pm

Dr Tan See Leng: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to have a point of clarification from Assoc Prof Jamus Lim. He was talking about the provisions within CECA, that he would like to look at CECA and refine it. So, perhaps, can I ask him to elaborate on what he means by refining, which aspects of CECA does he want to review and change?

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: Thank you, Speaker. Just to be clear, I was saying that it was time to evaluate the agreement. And my call explicitly was for additional information for us to actually better understand what the distributional implications of the agreement had been. I did not call explicitly for a refinement of CECA.

Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the Member for that clarification. I would just like to also refer Assoc Prof Jamus Lim to an article that was published I think in CNA in February 2020, that the household income inequality at the end of 2019 was at its lowest in almost 20 years.

We did not start the FTAs in 1965. We started the FTAs at the turn of this millennium. And at the end of the period of the FTA signing, the Gini coefficient, after transfers, is lower. So, I think, just to put some perspective into what Assoc Prof Jamus Lim is talking about.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: Just a quick clarification. I actually agree that our post-tax Ginis have improved in recent times, but that is, in fact, precisely because of something I pointed out, which is, that we have engaged in transfer policies to seek to ameliorate some of the implications of rising inequality. So, in fact, if you look at the non-post-tax Gini coefficients, they have, in fact, risen over time.

So, I understand it is a technical distinction. But I think it underscores the point that I was trying to raise, which is that it is important that we have policies, Government policies, to help ease this process of redistribution.

Dr Tan See Leng: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, in the interest of time, I thank you for acknowledging that the Government has been making these transfers and easing this process of redistribution, through our policy refinements and tweaking and our constant improvement in the entire situation.

Mr Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar.

10.22 pm

Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang): Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion standing in the name of the Minister for Finance. In this speech, I would like to focus on two sectors that have drawn some measure of unhappiness and which the hon Member Mr Leong Mun Wai is quite fond of bringing up: financial services and technology/ICT. I think we can safely assume that these are sectors in which he would like to see an urgent “rebalancing of the foreign PMET population” as well as a “review of the provisions in CECA”.

At this point, I would like to declare my interest as a managing director and partner of a management consulting firm. I do a good portion of my consulting work with banks and tech companies, and I want to share some perspectives on just how important getting the right balance in this debate around the foreign talent policy is to our competitiveness in these two sectors.

These are both people businesses that lend themselves to being natural hubs. Our strategy has been very clear. These sectors do not exist merely to provide services to our domestic market. Our strategy has been, and must unequivocally remain, to be a regional and global hub. And we have done very well.

In the financial sector, we have banks of every colour: local banks, regional banks, multinational corporation banks. Today, Chinese banks are actively entering the market; the fintech sector has been growing; and we are seeing the birth of the first digital banks. Wealth management continues to grow strongly, with family offices flocking here, on whose heels highly sophisticated legal practices are also coming. So, many PMET jobs have been created, for locals and foreigners, within the sector and in adjacent sectors. Jobs that a lot of Singaporeans want, not only for the good pay but also for a multinational corporation work environment that is seen to be more progressive, dynamic and diverse. Today, we are, without a doubt, the place to be for financial services in Asia. It is a status that only a few global cities can claim and it is a status we cannot take for granted.

While more recently forged, our status as a tech hub is growing by the day, with the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) companies, or the global tech giants, ramping up their Asian headquarters here. The Chinese tech giants have also come: the Bytedances, the Alibabas, the Ping Ans, the Tencents. They bring with them high-paying jobs, stock options and a startup culture that attracts some of our brightest young Singaporeans. We have unicorns like Shopee and we are also seeing more and more early stage startups or pre-unicorns. There is also a growing phenomenon of founding teams that comprise both Singaporeans and foreigners, and that diversity is fuelling innovation and entrepreneurship.

Both these sectors are important and growing sectors for Singapore. MNCs come for many reasons – our attractive tax laws, our business infrastructure, our skilled workforce and, yes, our open foreign talent policy. They do not only come because of our foreign talent policy, but they will not come if we curtail the flow of talent so much that they no longer feel they have access to a global talent pool. Because they play a global game and a global game requires a global talent pool. Global talent may also not come if they hear from their peers that they will not feel welcome.

As the Government has explained many times, it is our choice to play this global game, to be a financial hub, to be a technology hub. That explains why we have a lot of foreigners in these sectors and, in particular, a high concentration of Indian nationals, not CECA nor other FTAs.

Mr Speaker, if I may use the analogy of something that I love, and I know many others do, too: football, and, in particular, Liverpool Football Club.

Mr Speaker: Thank you.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: The English Premier League (EPL) has, undoubtedly, become the most successful football league in the world. The EPL does not exist to bring Britons their weekly fix of soccer. The EPL has legions of fans around the world. For two of the past three seasons, the Champions League final has been an all-England affair.

For Sunday’s match versus Leeds, the Liverpool starting 11 comprised nine nationalities, with only two Englishmen. But if you want to compete in the Champions League, you need the Messis, the Cristiano Ronaldos and the Mo Salahs. They not only complement the homegrown talent, they improve them. Local boy Trent Alexander Arnold would not be as good a right-back as he is today if he was not pinging in crosses every day to the likes of Mo Salah and Sadio Mane, without Allison and Van Dijk yelling instructions to the back four. This openness to talent has allowed Liverpool to bring pure joy to their fans around the world. It allows Liverpool kids to grow up dreaming of being the next Trent Alexandra Arnold or Curtis Jones, both academy lads.

It also means that many local lads and academy players never break into the senior team. Just think of Harry Wilson, the 2017/2018 Academy Player of the Year, who recently joined Fulham, unable to break the front three of Salah, Mane and Firmino. They have to ply their trade elsewhere. But with the foundation of a club like Liverpool, it is a soft landing. They can still make a great career for themselves.

Just think of Conor Coady who now enjoys an important role at Wolves, and even earned a call-up to the national team for Euro 2020. Or the tireless James Milner, whose minutes get less as he pushes the old age of 36, but only a fool would question his importance to the team, on and off the pitch, for his versatility, his experience and his leadership, to talk to the younger players or in Klopp’s word, to do “his kind of a little bit dirty dressing room talks that I cannot do, these things you say in the dressing room that I am not allowed to say in public. That’s the last kick and that’s nice”.

I, for one, would not object if the rumours of a future role in management in Klopp’s team were to come true. And which Liverpool fan can forget when we welcomed God, or Robbie Fowler to the rest of you, back to heaven when Rafa brought him back from Annfield as a backup striker to Owen and Heskey.

Mr Speaker, we cannot deny that the fruits of our foreign talent policy have not been shared equally by all. It has made things more competitive for our PMETs, and Members of Parliament from both sides of the House have talked about the anxieties felt by Singaporeans.

I have spoken to residents, many in their 40s and 50s, who were retrenched and have yet to find a new job, despite sending out many CVs and making efforts to tap on various reskilling programmes. I have spoken to residents who feel they have been displaced because there was a foreigner willing to work for lower pay. I have spoken to residents who see that the new expat manager is always followed by more of his countrymen. I have spoken to residents who have felt discriminated against at work, passed up for promotions and the plum assignments.

I have spoken to residents who question whether their foreign colleagues really have the qualifications claimed. I have spoken to graduates of our tertiary institutions, who find they cannot land the sexier jobs in ICT, which seem to demand experience that they think should only be expected of people with a few years of experience, not a fresh graduate. And I have spoken to residents in their 30s and 50s, who have jobs, but are feeling anxious about which side they will be on in the next round of headcount cuts, or just feel a little stuck.

And I empathise. I do not doubt that some of these grievances are real. That is the reason why we have the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) and Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP). So, I was happy to hear of the commitment to ensuring that Singaporeans always get a fair chance, including measures to enshrine TAFEP in legislation in the Prime Minister's National Day Rally speech. The Government must be firm in enforcing this.

It also makes sense to increase the EP and S Pass salary criteria because Singaporeans today are different from 20 or five years ago. We are more educated and more skilled. We have more Singaporeans who can do these jobs and companies must recognise that.

But it is dangerous to generalise and falsely characterise these issues as more pervasive than they are just to stoke emotions. It is dangerous to believe that if we just had fewer foreigners, all the problems would be solved and Singaporeans would get all the jobs, because there are other issues at play.

It is dangerous to believe that if we tell our banks and tech firms that we will not approve most of their EP applications and renewals, as I seem to hear the PSP say, that they have to get rid of the foreign talent they already have to meet some concentration ratios that the hard-earned status of being a global financial and tech hub will not be eroded. It is dangerous to believe that it is okay to lose this status because we have many things to fall back on. Because we do not. That is why I cannot accept and why I must reject the Motion standing in the name of Mr Leong Mun Wai.

Mr Speaker, the reality is, in both these sectors, we have more jobs than talent. The war for talent is not hyperbole. Talk to people in the industry and they will tell you how tight the labour market is, how hard it is to fill many of the roles. Indeed, as it has become more difficult to bring in new people, I have heard that people already in the market are able to jump to another opening, almost always with a minimum salary bump of 20% to 30% and often also with a jump in role.

Part of the reason it is so hard to find people is that technology is changing so rapidly and the depth of domain knowledge or specific technical skills is not yet readily available. We simply do not have enough Singaporeans with these skills.

In ICT, we now have lots of well-trained IT project managers. But, for roles like backend developers and data scientists, often, when they put out applications for these roles, many of the Singaporean CVs they receive check off perhaps one or two of the five to six skills involved. And for those who check off more boxes, the competition for those who have all the skills is intense – from the tech giants, Chinese firms, even GovTech – where I have to declare I am on the board.

On compliance in banking, we have a lot of Singaporeans in compliance. But for some, their knowledge is of traditional compliance frameworks while, globally, banks are adopting smart compliance, which is much more agile and aligned to business objectives, and they do not yet have that experience.

At the leadership level, we still hear that it is still difficult to find enough Singaporeans with the leadership, communication, change management and influencing skills needed to lead in the complex multi-stakeholder environment common in most MNC organisations. A reason often cited is that many Singaporeans lack international work and management experience.

Minister Lawrence Wong and Minister Tan See Leng have shared the changes that have been made over time to our foreign talent policy and guidelines on employment practices. These have been necessary and timely, and the impact is being felt.

My banking contacts have shared that getting an EP now takes much longer. EPs that used to get approved in days now take months, even for senior jobs.

But, again, does that mean that the roles will go to Singaporeans? The reality is that global banks are unlikely to settle because their own competition is so intense and the pressure to deliver outcomes so strong. So, if getting an EP takes longer and is more uncertain, if they do not see the skillsets immediately available in the local market, they choose to wait or they build in flexibility for themselves, such as by "parking" the staff in London, New York, Hong Kong or Dubai temporarily, but, potentially, permanently.

A senior bank HR executive shared that while she is supportive of the move to increase EP salary criteria, if new restrictions go too far, it will force them to reconsider their location strategies.

COVID-19 has changed the world. By now, MNCs have gotten good at working in remote teams. It is not inconceivable that banks move some tech and operations roles to India or even Poland and Russia. Indeed, it is already happening, taking along with them jobs held by Singaporeans in those teams.

Tech managers echoed these sentiments. "I could try and settle on a lower quality candidate but that really doesn’t sit well with me. I can wait several months but that doesn’t really work in business. Or I can move the role elsewhere. None of these is a great option I really want to do. I hope to not be put in the difficult position of making these kinds of trade-offs between quality, time and location," says a hiring manager in tech.

At the same time, many banks and tech companies are heeding the Government's call to invest in the Singaporean Core. At an MNC bank, at the entry level, the directive is now to hire exclusively Singaporean fresh graduates and PMETs who have gone through professional conversion programmes. At the next level, where the jobs require more specialised technical skills, there is a mix of Singaporeans and foreigners and they are trying different things to increase the proportion of Singaporeans.

They had tried getting hiring managers to carve out time to develop their local talent, but it did not really work – perhaps an ask too big of busy hiring managers. But they are now looking to start a scheme where local talent can shadow or do projects with the hiring manager one or two days a week.

For even more senior roles, they are pushing to give internal Singaporean candidates more opportunities. And at all levels, screening and interviewing practices have been updated to encourage more diversity and Singaporean representation. For example, at least three parties, including HR, interview every candidate to address the perception that some foreign hiring managers tend to favour people from their own countries. Hiring managers are also asked to consider internal Singaporean applicants first before internal EP holders, before external Singaporean hires and then only external foreign hires, in that order.

Similarly, in the tech sector, companies like Google are very deliberate in making sure that locals are represented in the screening and interviewing process and have also created traineeships under schemes like SG United. Google has made a few hires from this programme and has contributed more trained talent to their ecosystem. All these are initiatives that take effort, but they do them.

Mr Speaker, at this point, I do want to give a voice to Singaporeans in these sectors who are perhaps heard not as often about, like my friend, Ms M, who joined one of the tech giants when they ramped up their regional operations here. She said, “I love what I do and I enjoy working with the diversity of colleagues. If Singapore were not open and Company X hadn't come here, I would never have had the opportunity to work for this great company." Another friend, who is in one of the digital banks, said, "I get to be involved in creating a new business model. I'm learning every day." Meanwhile, a former colleague who joined one of the unicorns has recently embarked on an exciting adventure to head up their operations as they take bold steps to expand in Brazil.

These positive feelings persist even when there are disappointments. Ms L shared with me how she had applied for the position of country manager, which eventually went to a foreigner. "I could feel like it was an opportunity taken from me, but you know what? I report to him now and I have learnt a lot from him. I don't begrudge him that role at all because I recognise him as a world-class talent. So, I learn from him and maybe one day I'll get my shot."

These are intensely personal stories. But they are real Singaporeans, too. How can we deny these Singaporeans the opportunity to live their dreams?

The PSP talks about rebalancing the foreign labour force. Based on the list of concrete proposals on how they seek to achieve that, I can only observe that they seem to be fixated on achieving this rebalancing by taking unilateral actions to reduce the number of foreigners as quickly as possible, as if that is the only way it can be done.

It is as if the PSP has no faith in Singaporeans to get there on our own merit without risking our global hub proposition. I beg to differ. We Singaporeans are much more adaptable and resilient than that. So, yes, let us tighten up where we can, let us ferret out instances of discrimination because there is really no place for this. But I say the best way to rebalance is to keep investing in Singaporeans until we are globally competitive.

The Government has made significant investments in the Singaporean Core. The number of training and reskilling programmes for the unemployed has been impressive.

It is still too early to tell what the overall outcomes will be, but we have some reason to be optimistic. In one of the mid-career reskilling programmes I am familiar with, 40% of the trainees landed a job within a couple of weeks of graduation. We all know of mid-career PMETs who have taken courses and not landed a job, but let us not forget to celebrate those who have and let us keep working on it.

Reskilling is also relevant to two other groups of Singaporeans: first, Singaporeans who have jobs but are at risk either due to sunsetting sectors or their individual skillsets; and, second, our graduates.

In my maiden speech, I called on companies to take accountability for their employees' learning. In many organisations, learning and development are still not top of mind. Too often, conversations about skills are associated with performance management rather than professional development. Employers sometimes say that it is difficult to get their employees to go for reskilling, even though failure to reskill will, ultimately, cost them their current jobs and their future prospects.

As for our tertiary graduates, more can be done to equip them with industry-relevant skills, knowledge and tools. You may see this as an indictment of our tertiary institutions but that is not entirely fair. It is difficult for professors and curricula to keep up with the pace at which industry is moving, specifically when it comes to the specific tools that are used only in the industry.

When companies recruit for backend engineers, they look not only for knowledge of backend programming languages but also knowledge of popular frameworks like Spring Framework, Spring Security or Django used in industry. According to the CEO of a startup which uses big data to understand skills, few young Singaporean graduates have these on their CVs.

Interestingly enough, many young graduates in India and Jakarta do, not through their university courses but through boot camps and external short courses they attend. We do not quite have this culture here yet.

It is easy to say Singaporeans are too sheltered, passive and complacent, but I submit it is, in fact, often because they lack awareness and understanding of where and how to start, especially if there are frictions that make it difficult to, such as family commitments or side gigs to augment family incomes.

Mr Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar, if you can wrap up, please.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: We can do more – the Government and employers.

We need to empower Singaporeans to take ownership of their own reskilling and career development by, first, giving them the tools to understand where their skills stand versus their peers, where their skills, or lack thereof, are at risk, and then what they can do to start their reskilling journey or nudge them on the jobs they can put their hands up for.

Tertiary institutions can work with industry to curate these courses and boot camps and guide their students on which ones to take for the jobs they want.

And Singaporeans must put our hands up. Do not just complain that company job postings or internal job portals are just for show, even if that may be true in some cases. Know the skills, get the skills, send in the applications showing the skills, and MOM will make sure that companies cannot ignore you.

To do this, much more granularity is needed on the skills required for each job.

Mr Speaker: You do need to wrap up.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: Okay. This granularity will also allow MOM to be more circumspect and discerning when employers come claiming that they cannot find any Singaporeans with the skills and to ensure that reskilling programmes supported by public funds will have a better track record of outplacement.

Sir, there are a number of proposals I do have, including extending SkillsFuture Credits to our tertiary students below 25 years old, supporting longer-term reskilling and professional development programmes than the current six to 12 month traineeships, especially for the sandwiched class, and removing frictions for Singaporeans to take on overseas postings.

Mr Speaker: Thank you.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister articulated clearly the need for us to remain open—

Mr Speaker: But you do need to wrap up.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: —while investing in the Singaporean Core. This Motion proposed by the Minister for Finance reiterates this. It is critical we get this balance right. Notwithstanding my suggestions in this speech, I support the Motion. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: We will now call the Minister for Finance to make his reply on his Motion on Securing Singaporeans' Jobs and Livelihoods, followed by Mr Leong Mun Wai for his reply on his Motion on Foreign Talent Policy. Thereafter, I will put the question in respect of each Motion to the House for voting. Minister for Finance.

10.44 pm

Mr Lawrence Wong: Mr Speaker, I thank Members for speaking in this debate.

We all know that change is the only constant. COVID-19 has accelerated change further with digital transformation, new business models and new ways of working.

In the coming years, we will see more disruptions and volatility in the global economy. As entire industries adapt to these changes, many jobs will be transformed. The skillsets needed will change. New jobs will be created but some jobs will become obsolete. This is the reality of the globalised world we live in and this is the inevitable price of human progress.

Sentiments towards these changes are understandably mixed. Some foresee limitless new opportunities. Others fear massive dislocation of jobs. How Singapore capitalises on these opportunities while addressing the anxieties around jobs will determine our success and whether we remain cohesive and intact as one people.

I am glad that Members who have spoken acknowledged that this is a complex issue requiring a delicate balancing act. We need to deliberate our options carefully and work hard to find solutions that balance the different interests and the needs of our stakeholders. There are no easy answers.

Sir, I have listened carefully to the points that Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa made just now. If I may summarise the basic thrust of their argument: we have too many foreigners in Singapore; let us squeeze them out of Singapore; and these jobs will go to Singaporeans; even better, our wages will go up. But this is simplistic and wishful thinking. Let me explain why.

First, when we squeeze foreign PMETs, the jobs will not automatically go to Singaporeans. Just think about this. Global businesses are here – international consultancies and private banks. They are here, as Ms Mariam Jaafar said just now, to play the global game. They are not here to serve the Singapore market. They are here to serve the region and the world.

Here, in Singapore, they want to bring together an international team. That is our value proposition to them. That is why they find Singapore attractive. Imagine if you tell them, "Look, you can only be here if you fulfil 90% of your staff being locals. That is the condition." Why would they find that attractive anymore?

To assume that by squeezing the foreigners, all these jobs will go to Singaporeans, I think that is just being very simplistic about the argument. But Mr Leong Mun Wai goes further than that. He says, "Look, if foreigners go and Singaporeans cannot take the jobs, that is the failure of the education system." Really? I think that argument is completely disingenuous and does a great disservice to our educators and teachers in our schools and Institutes of Higher Learning.

Mr Leon Perera and Mr Gerald Giam did not go as far as Mr Leong Mun Wai, but they had variations of the same argument. If only you did better with training. If only you taught all the kids coding from a young age 20 years ago. If only.

Sir, we will continue to improve our education system. But I think all of these arguments miss out on the most important point. And, that is, the stark reality that Singaporeans are great as a workforce, but there are just not enough of us.

We have needs in IT. We have tremendous need in engineering. Look at the services sector, healthcare is growing, we need more people to look after our elderly population. We need more doctors, nurses. We need more physiotherapists. Oh, by the way, low-income issues are a problem, do we not need more social workers, too? And did some Members of the PSP not ask earlier when I was in MOE, they certainly did, let us recruit more teachers?

Where are we going to find all the Singaporeans? Everybody wants more.

Indeed, if you go to any of our faculties or maybe most of the faculties in our Universities, Polytechnics and ITEs, they will tell you, when they talk to industries, the industries and employers are saying, "Look, we want your graduates but produce more of them." And how are we going to produce more Singaporean graduates? If we move to one area, the other will say that there is a shortage. That is just the stark reality.

Then, there is another argument that says, "Look, so many mid-careers underemployed. Let us train them." Yes, we are doing our best to train all the mid-career PMETs, but this does not happen overnight. All of us know, it is very hard for someone in his 40s and 50s to make a career change to transit from one industry that they have been working in for years to another industry. It takes tremendous effort. And that is why, as I have mentioned earlier, the Government is going all out to help our mid-careers. We are investing more heavily in SkillsFuture, in lifelong learning, we are working with our tripartite partners, and especially with NTUC and the Labour Movement. But individuals also do have to make the effort in order to make these transitions. So, that is my first point. It is hard work getting this reskilling done and we should not just automatically assume that squeezing foreigners means jobs will go to Singaporeans.

Second, Ms Hazel Poa also showed the chart that suggested there was an association between tight labour markets and wage growth. Yes, perhaps there was; the data is quite clear, based on the last 10 years. But I would say be careful about drawing simplistic policy conclusions from that data. It will potentially lead to bad outcomes. What happened in the last 10 years? We had the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. After that, we waited for a while to make sure that the economy has stabilised. And if you recall, we tightened our foreign worker policies, levies and quotas. At the same time, the economy bounced back very sharply, much, much more strongly than we expected.

In fact, I remember after 2011 and entering politics, we were discussing this issue, having dialogues. Many businesses and employers were literally scolding us for tightening foreign worker policies. They said, "Look, there's so much growth. Why are you holding us back?" They were very upset with us. But it was that combination of factors – tightening of foreign worker policies, the very strong economic growth during that period – that resulted in a wage growth.

If we make that simplistic conclusion, that tight labour markets – just tighten, just tighten – wages will automatically rise, I think we may be going down a very dangerous path, because, beyond a point, if wage increases are not matched by productivity increases, we will lose our competitiveness. When that happens, we are not just squeezing out foreigners, we will be squeezing out investments, and jobs will go with them.

That leads me to my third point, which is that this thinking is not just simplistic or wishful; it is fatally flawed. If we were to take such a short-sighted approach, companies will leave and jobs will leave with them. Over time, Singapore's reputation as a business hub will surely be impacted. Our economy will decline and Singaporeans will suffer.

There is another thing about the PSP's approach that worries me. And that is the complacent assumption in their thinking that Singapore has arrived and companies just want to be here. So, the Government can set tougher rules and the companies will have to put up with them because they had no choice.

But let us get real. No one owes us a living. Global competition for investments is relentless and more intense than ever. It took many decades of hard work to get to where we are today. Please have a care about what we say or do because things can fall apart very easily.

I have set out in my opening speech the Government's approach. We keep Singapore open and connected to the world because that is the best, indeed, the only way to secure our future.

At the same time, we know that there are downsides to being an open economy. So, we will deal with these downsides proactively. Assoc Prof Jamus Lim just now talked about the concern about an "India shock". And I think he also suggested that perhaps our FTA with CECA might make us more vulnerable to this India shock. But, again, CECA is not relevant here. CECA or not, if India liberalises and opens up, just based on WTO, there will be an India shock, which we will have to deal with and adjust to as we had to do when China joined the WTO.

So, there are downsides to trade. I said that in my speech. There are downsides to being an open economy. That is why we work very hard to deal with these downsides by managing the flow of foreign work pass holders, upholding fair employment at workplaces and helping every displaced worker to get back into jobs. We know that the speed at which technology has developed and the way the global economy is shifting are, indeed, disorienting and difficult, especially for our older PMETs. Some have been knocked down by the winds of change and it is not simply a matter of bouncing back on your feet again, especially when you are older. But the world will not stop and the economy will continue to change.

The Government will provide the best possible support we can give to those who have been knocked back. We cannot go back or hesitate in embracing change. Our children now have opportunities today that we would only dream of in the past. They get to work in the most cutting-edge industries and companies; they work alongside the world's best without having to leave Singapore. This is not just for the few as it was for an older generation, but also for the many amongst the young, and all these have been made possible because we kept ourselves open to the world, even as many other countries caved in to domestic pressures and turned inward. There is no reason why, as fathers and mothers, we cannot walk tall, knowing that we are doing our best for our children and our next generation.

Several Members have also given specific suggestions on what more we can do in various areas. We will study all suggestions carefully and continue to finetune and improve our policies.

I have also presented evidence of what we have achieved with our policies: more jobs created, incomes rising over the years and more opportunities for our children. These are all based on published data and facts. There is a lot of data out there – more than enough for any serious analyst to dive in, understand better what is happening in the labour market, what is happening with employment trends and unemployment trends – and Prof Hoon Hian Teck just now demonstrated that with his excellent economic exposition based on published data. So, look at the evidence and see for yourself how our policies have benefited Singaporeans.

But at the end of the day, I recognise that this strategy that I have set out that the Government is pursuing is not something that is easy to implement politically. While the vast majority benefit from an open economy, there will be some whose lived experiences are not so rosy. For everyone who suffers a negative experience, it is painful, it is very difficult and it is emotional.

In other countries, populist parties have no compunction about tapping into people's anxieties, appealing to fear, appealing to tribal instincts, pitting one group against another. They blame immigrants and foreigners and make them scapegoats for their country's problems and this results in the countries turning inward and becoming more protectionist. We cannot afford any of this to happen in Singapore.

First, as a small city-state, staying open is not just essential; it is existential. Second, if we start having racial or xenophobic undertones in our politics, we will be going down a very slippery slope. It will start with seemingly innocent comments and questions being raised, or dog-whistles, coded phrases. But, over time, the comments become normalised, and racist and xenophobic sentiments become more prevalent. When that happens, our society will fracture and Singapore will fall apart.

Indeed, many Members have also spoken strongly against racism and xenophobia. I thank them for their statements and I fully agree with them that there is no place for such sentiments in this House and in Singapore.

Mr Leong Mun Wai himself now claims that his Motion has got nothing to do with racism or xenophobia. But the fact is that, over the past few months, the PSP has been raging against FTAs and CECA, and for reasons that I genuinely cannot fathom. Despite all the clarifications we have made, his Motion today continues to attribute the cause of job anxieties to FTAs and CECA.

Mr Leong Mun Wai takes issue with the Government calling him out on this. But it is not just us. Others can see what the PSP is doing. In my opening speech earlier, I read an email from someone that various Ministers received the email from. Mr Leong says the PSP listens to the people. Is he listening to feedback like this?

Ms Hazel Poa said, in response to my email sharing about this Singaporean who was not happy with the PSP's campaign against CECA, that we should assure him, that do not worry, the PSP's approach will give him more assurance of getting a job. But I have already highlighted that the PSP's approach is not going to work any better. It will be worse.

Second, Ms Hazel Poa misses the point because this gentleman who emailed to us, his concern was not just about jobs. He said, and I repeat what he said again: "The PSP's campaign is truly racist and it is hurting Singapore Indians and we are splitting Singaporeans along racial lines." It is not just a jobs concern, which the Member has not addressed.

The PSP's own members have expressed this concern, which my colleague, Minister Shanmugam, said just now. According to media reports, one senior PSP member said that focusing on CECA is, "cheap politics". Another member said that there are racial undertones with how the CECA issue is being raised in Parliament, and the "real problem is not about CECA".

So, these are voices that the PSP's own Members have said that Singaporeans have highlighted. Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa keep saying, "No, no, no, we are not racist. We are not stirring racist sentiments". But, look, if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. [ Laughter. ]

Whatever Mr Leong Mun Wai or Ms Hazel Poa may say, the fact is, this is how people see and perceive the PSP's campaign.

Mr Leong Mun Wai also asked for more data. Dr Tan See Leng had given a whole range of data just now and, as I have said, there is more than enough public data out there to show that the job challenges we face do not arise from FTAs, let alone CECA. And I cannot help but feel that the persistent data requests are red herrings to continue this campaign of casting aspersions and creating disaffection towards the Government.

I hope Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa will have the open-mindedness to look at the data and evidence again. Listen to what Prof Hoon Hian Teck has said just now, or any other serious analyst that is looking at the data, and review the PSP's position objectively and be gracious enough to accept that the allegations are baseless and put a stop to the false claims that they have been perpetrating about CECA and FTAs, both in and out of this House.

Next, let us consider the policy issues that Mr Leong Mun Wai raised. He suggested tightening immigration policies. But as several of my colleagues have said just now, this is really a separate topic from manpower policy. In any case, the evidence is clear: population growth over the last decade has been the lowest since our Independence. So, there should be no doubt that we have already been very tight at the overall level. We have also emphasised that our immigration policies will continue to ensure that the ethnic balance remains stable for our citizen population. And you can see for yourself in the latest census reports how we have maintained this balance over the decades.

As far as foreign manpower policy is concerned, after all the fire and brimstone from Mr Leong Mun Wai, all that he has asked for are three adjustments to our policies: raising EPs and S Pass qualifying salaries, imposing a levy on EPs and imposing a cap of 10% per nationality in any company. These proposals have nothing to do with CECA and FTAs.

So, these are the three specific policy issues that Mr Leong Mun Wai was concerned about. Why did PSP not raise them in the first place? Why does his Motion harp upon the Foreign Talent Policy, Movement of Natural Persons in FTAs and, specifically, CECA? Why is he continuing the PSP's sustained negative campaign against CECA, a move which even his own party members say is cheap politics? Why pin the blame on Indian nationals and stir racial unhappiness in our own community?

These are questions that I doubt I will get direct answers from Mr Leong Mun Wai, but only he, Ms Hazel Poa and the PSP know the real answers to. But I hope that, having had the benefit of this debate, Mr Leong Mun Wai, Ms Hazel Poa and the PSP will seriously reflect on their actions and conduct and abandon such irresponsible politics that will divide our society and be disastrous for Singapore. By all means, let us talk about manpower policies; let us debate them; let us talk about the pros and cons of different settings, but they have nothing to do with CECA and FTAs. The more you persist with this line of questioning and the more you persist with your campaign, the more you obfuscate the matter and make problems worse.

Next, let me address some of the questions and points that Members from the Workers' Party have raised. If I can summarise the Workers' Party position on my Motion, it is this: the Workers' Party agrees with the Government's overall strategy to stay open and connected to the world and deal with the downsides of an open economy, but we would like the Government to do more to help Singaporeans.

First, I thank the Workers' Party for supporting our strategy. That is very important, that there is alignment and common ground on this basic strategy for Singapore. As for the "do more" part, well, I have already said that the Government will do our utmost to deal with all the downsides. Where there are specific policy suggestions – and a few were raised just now – we will consider them. We will weigh the pros and cons and consider carefully also – wearing my MOF hat – how we should pay for them. And I am sure there will be opportunities in the future for such meaningful debates, including during the Budget next year.

The Workers' Party also had another line of argument, which was about information, data and communications. The Government's communication is not perfect, we will always work to improve our communication strategy. But where data is concerned, as I have said, there is already a lot of data that we have released to the public. Data on the labour markets, data that has been requested. We have put out more than enough data for anyone looking at the matter to examine the facts carefully.

The Workers' Party's line is that more data is better. In fact, why not go all the way and have freedom of information, a proposal which the Workers' Party has made before. I would say, the Government has a different view. We see data and transparency as a means to better governance and it is not always the case that data is necessarily an unmitigated good.

America has the Freedom of Information Act. What is their trust in government like? All the external surveys will show that the trust levels are low and nowhere near where we are in Singapore today. And this is America, but you can look at many other countries which have similar Freedom of Information provisions and that has not helped to improve public trust or public confidence in policies.

The real issue is this: when someone loses his or her job, they will be unhappy, no matter how much data you provide to them. In fact, when they lose their jobs, they are not interested in data. They need help. So, we will do our utmost, as I have said, to help everyone who is displaced.

There are also, sometimes – from time to time – good reasons why we may want to be careful about releasing data. Which is why I said our view on data is a lot more nuanced than the Workers' Party's position – to just release all the data and everyone will have enlightenment.

For example, people ask for more data with breakdown by nationality. Where it is possible, we have released those data, but is it such a good thing to let the whole world know our dependence on foreign workers and from which particular country? Really, do we want to let everyone know that?

I think it was one of the Workers' Party Members who also said that one has to be careful about hostile actors that may exploit our social fault lines to disrupt our society. Indeed, we live in a dangerous world. So, should we not be careful about external parties that may hold us to ransom by threatening to disrupt or terminate our labour flows, especially in certain key Industries? So, that weighs on our mind when we think about data release. We should, therefore, think through carefully these broader considerations when we talk about data release and information policy.

This is why the Government cannot accept the Workers' Party's amendments to this Motion.

The first amendment, drops the word "support" and talks about calling for stronger actions. But this leaves it too open-ended and changes the meaning of the limb of the Motion that we originally had. The second limb, limb (f), talks about data and information, but that is really about, as I have said, information policy. Nothing to do with the debate we are having now about jobs, and there is no shortage of data, as I have emphasised earlier. There is a lot of data today already that allows anyone to study the facts and evidence to decide how our policies have worked and impacted Singaporeans and make an informed decision about this matter. If the Workers' Party would like to have a separate debate on information, data provision or even what the Workers' Party has proposed, which is, to have a Freedom of Information Act, we can do so separately. But let us not conflate the issues.

Finally, we talk about racism and xenophobia, which are the important issues we are dealing with today in this debate. I note that the Workers' Party has tried to disassociate itself from the PSP Motion. It suggested some amendments to the Motion, which Speaker has ruled were not acceptable, because they changed the substance of the Motion. But it is quite clear from the speeches made by the Leader of the Opposition and Members of the Workers' Party where they stand on this matter. And I thank Mr Pritam Singh and Workers' Party Members for your very strong stand against racism and xenophobia.

Mr Pritam Singh himself quoted from a speech he made, I believe, at the Opening of Parliament, where he talked about "foreigners in our economy; giving Singapore vitality", that we must "maintain that openness and friendly attitude towards them." In the debate in July, he made very clear his stand again, that when it comes to racism and xenophobia, we have to reject them and there can be no "ifs and buts". And I believe that he also agrees that FTAs, including CECA, are fundamental to our economic survival. That was in the debate in July.

Again, today, I think he was quite clear where he stood and he, I believe, also mentioned that he was concerned about the racial undertones that have entered into the present debate on FTAs and CECA. And we should be very clear that the Workers' Party does not stand for any of this. Those were, I believe, statements that he made earlier. So, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for making very clear where the Workers' Party stands on this important matter.

In that spirit, I hope he will confirm that we cannot give credence to negative racial undertones in our political debates, that we must never allow such politics to take root in this House and in Singapore, and that the Workers' Party will reject the PSP's Motion.

Sir, in this pandemic, we have been talking about vaccines and the antibodies they provide against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There are other viruses we should worry about: the dark forces of fear and anger of racism and xenophobia. They are no less infectious or deadly. As a society, we need our antibodies to kick in, too, against these viruses, against these other threats, to defend against and defeat the bigots, the racists and the fear-mongers.

Finally, Mr Pritam Singh and Mr Leong Mun Wai suggested having parliamentary committees to discuss the issue of jobs and skills. Sir, we have no shortage of opportunities to debate these issues in Parliament. The Government will provide data when it is asked for. Where we think it is in the national interest to provide such data, we will certainly do. We will consult widely with our stakeholders, especially with our tripartite partners. We will take all ideas and views seriously.

Often, there will be differing perspectives and it will not be possible to take on board every suggestion. So, in the end, the Government has the responsibility to govern and to make policy decisions in the best interest of all Singaporeans. Some decisions will not be so popular, even though we are convinced they are necessary and must proceed for the good of all. When that happens, we may see opposition parties finding ways to stir up disquiet and disagreement. That is the nature of politics.

Sometimes, the Government decides it is an urgent matter and we need to move quickly. Then we will be criticised for not consulting and being too high-handed. On other occasions, we think it is better to take time to deliberate and get everyone on board. Then, we will be criticised for moving too slowly.

That is our karma. We have accepted that in Government. At least, I have accepted that. But we will not be shaken from our conviction to do what is right for Singapore and Singaporeans.

We will not sugar coat realities or shirk away from our responsibilities in tackling difficult issues. We will make the tough calls where necessary. At the end of the term, we will present our report card to Singaporeans and they will judge us on our performance. That is how our system has worked and will continue to work and that is why the PAP Government will always be on the side of Singaporeans, working with you and for you.

We know our policies are delivering results and Singaporeans are seeing improvements in their quality of life. But we also recognise that there are segments who are more vulnerable and who struggle to keep up. So, we are fully committed to do more to ensure the fruits of progress are shared by every Singaporean. Our priority is to build a fairer, more equal and more inclusive society as we emerge from this crisis and enter a more uncertain and volatile post-pandemic world.

Mr Speaker, we have had a long debate on important issues. I am mindful of the time. But it is an important debate. It is a debate about jobs and livelihoods. It is also a debate, more importantly, about our values, who we are, who we want to be and the Singapore we want for ourselves and our children.

Two Motions stand before us. The Motion that stands in my name talks about Singapore's overall economic strategy to stay open, connected to the world, and to deal with the downsides of an open economy, and to continue with all our efforts to help every Singaporean cope and adjust, and to make sure Singapore stays united and we progress together.

The Motion that stands in Mr Leong Mun Wai's name is ostensibly to deal with the anxieties about jobs but, for reasons known only to the PSP, persists with a negative campaign to link this to FTAs and CECA, and to continue to stir racism and xenophobia.

So, we have to decide where we stand and make a choice.

I say, we take a firm and unequivocal stance against racism and xenophobia and, so, I ask all Members in this House to vote for the Motion standing in my name and to reject the PSP's Motion.

Sir, I entered politics 10 years ago in 2011. My first posting was as Minister of State in Education. When I visited schools, one of the questions I liked to ask our students then was: what would you like to be when you grow up? At that time, I received many traditional answers: to be a doctor, be a lawyer, be a soldier, be a teacher. When I returned to MOE last year, I went around asking the same question in my school visits. And, this time, I heard many more diverse aspirations. Kids said that they would like to be a video game designer, data scientist, startup founder, pursuing careers in companies like Amazon and Google. These aspirations are possible because we have defied the odds to build something special here in Singapore: a vibrant city connected to the world, brimming with life, energy and excitement, full of opportunities for our people.

By continuing on this path, we give ourselves the best chance of helping our children realise their aspirations. This is what is at stake for all of us. We know it is not easy to thrive as a little red dot in this big ocean of globalisation. We will encounter many bouts of stormy weather along the way for sure. But we are all on the same boat together and we will get through these storms as one people.

That is what we have been doing for the past 20 months, dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. It has been difficult for all of us. It has added to the stresses and strains felt by people who are suffering the negative experiences of trade and globalisation. But we have also seen throughout this period that we are strongest when we stand together. We have demonstrated we have the never-say-die spirit. We have the ability and drive to work as one people. And we have the guts and gumption to meet every problem head-on. So, together, we can build our best home in Singapore and create a brighter future for ourselves and our families, and for all Singaporeans young and old. Thank you, Sir. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai. Please if you can make a reply on your Motion.

11.21 pm

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Ministers and Members for their participation until so late tonight. Rest assured, I am time-limited. So, I only have 40 minutes for my speech.

I come to this House to respond to a challenge by Minister K Shanmugam to debate on CECA. He has been puzzling me because it was in reference to his remarks made on a racial incident, which has nothing to do with CECA. The very fact that he linked the incident to CECA was both disingenuous and troubling.

The Prime Minister also, in his National Day Rally speech, claimed that those who question CECA, wanting to put Singaporeans first, had a strong racial undertone. Minister Lawrence Wong also reiterated many of those accusations throughout his two speeches today.

But when I asked Minister Shanmugam for instances where I have commented about CECA prior to accepting his challenge, he cannot reply me. He went on to ask me a few other questions but he did not reply to me. So, these are clearly attempts by this Government to put a label on those seeking more information disclosure and more objective discussion on CECA as racist and xenophobic. I think I will leave that issue as it is. We have done all our explanation that we are not racist or xenophobic. At the end of the day, justice is in the heart of the people. The people will decide.

Political labels are convenient to use to discredit someone but they are not helpful for an open and objective discussion. By the way, I will also have to object to Minister Tan See Leng's words just now saying that PSP is attacking foreigners. Maybe it is a slip of his tongue, but I have to correct that.

All of us here today have one common objective and, that is, to improve the job prospects and livelihoods of Singaporeans. And I have stayed focused on that objective.

So, let me reiterate that we are neither racist nor xenophobic, and this debate is squarely about jobs and livelihoods of our PMETs, who are adversely affected by the foreign talent policy. The provisions on people movement in FTAs like CECA are only a small part of a much larger problem. To be clear, we need foreign talent. They play an important role in complementing, transferring skills and knowledge, as well as providing opportunities for cross-fertilisation of ideas.

But those that are brought in and masked under the EP and SP schemes are not, by definition, really foreign talent. They are foreign professionals let in without quota, resulting in displacement of our own workforce. By drawing on Mr Goh Chok Tong's definition of mediocrity, a foreign talent should be one who earns more than $500,000 a year, or $40,000 a month.

While we do need foreign talent, more importantly, we need to protect our Singaporean Core. And what is the Singaporean Core? It is simply our citizens, natural or new, who recite our Singapore Pledge, and whose interest the Government has the prime responsibility to look after.

The current policies have seriously hollowed out our core. In many key industries, our PMET core is no longer the dominant force that we can rely on for long-term growth. The very people that can ensure the future of our country are being displaced and hollowed out.

It has been a long debate and we have covered a lot of ground. However, as expected, the Government's stance on the causes and the severity of the problem Singaporeans are facing is very different from ours. As a result, probably the new policies that the Government is going to come up with will not solve the problems thoroughly and Singaporean sufferings may have to go on. We might have to come back one year later again and debate on the same problem. Singaporeans would note that PSP has done our best to convince this Government.

Let me go through the differences between the Government position and PSP position.

First, the Government says displacement is due to globalised and fast-changing world. PSP says a large part is due to work pass holders.

Two, the displacement problem is not serious, the Government says. PSP says probably a lot more serious. Coming back to the 380,000 PME jobs that the Manpower Minister had presented to us in the 6 July Ministerial Statement, we are trying to ask him if he is sure that this number represents a net job creation for Singaporeans. So, there were some exchanges just now with my colleague, Hazel Poa, as well. There was no conclusion.

But let me just share some numbers with you. Three hundred and eighty thousand PME jobs created for locals, and that is for both Singaporeans and PRs, from 2005 to 2020. But during the same period, 600,000 PRs had been awarded to work pass holders. So, the reclassification is likely to be a significant factor. But we do not know what is the number because we do not have the number from the Government.

On top of that, there were 400,000 University and Polytechnic graduates during that period. So, a million people seeking jobs versus 380,000 jobs created. So, I do not know how to reconcile the numbers, but maybe in other future forums, we can continue to discuss that.

Third, the Government says emphasis is on training and retraining Singaporeans; PSP says better prevent job displacement first. Let the foreigners do the skills transfer because once a person is displaced, it is difficult for him to find a new job. It is so easy to say "train again, take up the challenge" and all that. The examples you quoted, I am sure, is a small minority of those Singaporeans who can really change to a new industry and learn new skills.

Fourth, the Government says discrimination is sporadic; PSP says probably it is structural, we have to look at it because the foreign work pass holders have been in Singapore in large numbers for the last 20 years and they are a very influential force in the job market. So, if you want to rectify the discriminative situation in the job market, legislation may be too slow.

Fifth, foreign talent creates jobs, says the Government; but PSP says the work pass holders we are attracting are all average work pass holders. Where do they have the ability to create jobs? So, they are just here to share our jobs. The jobs done by them, most of them can be done by Singaporeans as well. In that sense, Prof Hoon Hian Teck's lump of labour fallacy may not apply.

Sixth, Member Mr Patrick Tay also mentioned this, that there is a lot of resistance from employers if you want to change the foreigners policy. Of course, that is expected because, after all, they are profit seekers. But PSP says: how long can we kick the can down the road? At some point, we have to change and this is a golden opportunity because now we can tell the employers work harder, "We can give you the quota now, but make sure you promise to scale down your people in three years' time." This is the opportunity to convince the employers to work together and we change the course of our economy. If not, our economy will continue to be stuck in a low value-add position.

Lastly, the Government says you send wrong signal to foreigners; PSP says as long as we Singaporeans are united, Government and alternative parties all united and say we have to change course, I do not think foreigners can say much because that is the way we have chosen.

And I do not think the foreigners are here just because we give them work passes. They are here, they have made a business decision and a strategy. There are many factors involved. Work passes are just one of the factors. In fact – afterwards I will elaborate on our policy recommendations – we are not saying that you do not allow the foreign companies to come in with the number of work passes they want initially. But it must be transitional. There must be localisation over time.

We cannot allow them to continue to keep the same number of foreigners from the very day they come in. So, as long as we are united, I think we can put the message nicely to the foreigners. After all, we can set up a fair consideration framework for foreigners. Why the fair consideration framework for Singaporeans? That is something, as a Singaporean, I feel very puzzled about.

An interesting point was brought up by Ms Janet Ang. I respect Janet as a senior executive in the private sector. She mentioned that Singaporeans did not have the relevant skills, work knowledge and global experience. But I would like to say that if Singaporeans continue to be uprooted from their jobs, where do we get the opportunity to accumulate the skills and know-how over time?

Like I said just now, you cannot expect the Singaporeans to pick up new skills all the time. Are you going to say that if foreigners come in and replace the Singaporeans because it is low-cost, the Singaporeans lost the job and then he has to go and acquire a new skill again? No. Skills and know-how – that comes to the capabilities of our economy. The whole foreign talent policy, as far as we can see up to now, contributes little to our capability building, partly because our Singaporean Core are being affected. Our Singaporean Core are no longer learning over time in the same job. They have been displaced.

Another thing I want to point out to Ms Janet Ang is that we hope the top managers in Singapore would also understand that and support Singaporeans and not keep saying "Singaporeans don't have this, don't have that", because they are now under a system that does not have the incentive to make them work hard, to make them work in the way we want them to take up the challenge and all that.

Those prospects existed in our generation, Ms Janet Ang. In this generation, it is more challenging. And, now, the leadership of the country has brought in an additional trouble for them and, that is, competition from foreigners. Not that we want to avoid competition. But, as I have said before in my speech, the competition was not really fair, to start with.

So, other than the discriminative structure that we have talked about in the job market, actually, our economy now is also in a very different operating structure, thanks to the 20 years of foreign talent policy. It will not be easy to transform. We know that. Like a GLC senior manager, who is a very close friend, recently shared with me, "Ah, if you want me to overhaul my whole system now, it will be very high cost because it's totally dependent on foreigners now." But I think we still have to make the change. If, together, we have a consensus, we can rope in a lot of initiatives, a lot of resources. We can give each other time – employers, workers – but I think we need to make the change.

Next, what I want to comment about is from Mr Saktiandi Supaat who mentioned that Singaporeans are now very active in the global financial market. I like to hear that. But I would also like to remind him we Singaporeans have been in the forefront of the financial market since the 1980s. I started work in GIC in 1986. Before that, many of my seniors, not just in GIC, but seniors in the financial sector in Singapore were already pioneers in financial innovations in New York. They go to New York and they make the innovation. Some of the innovations were interest rate swaps and all the equity and bond derivatives. I am not so capable. But I set up one of the first equity derivative desks in Tokyo in 1987.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat mentioned about my PR recommendation. I recommend to control the number, manage the number down. But he did not read my recommendation correctly. I actually said the recommendation is for work pass holders. So, I am in support of Singaporeans with foreign spouses and giving the PR to the foreign spouses. I am in support of that. But for this recommendation, I am referring to PR and citizenship to the work pass holders.

So, to reiterate PSP's position: one, we think the foreign talent is not a silver bullet to solve all our problems; two, the foreign talent policy is the root cause of the influx of foreigners and that has caused a significant number of displacement of Singaporeans; three, unfair wage competition is the main economic driver of the displacement; four, decisive and concrete measures are now needed to rebalance our job market; five, and lastly, the FTAs and CECA are part of the equation when we consider immigration and employment policies.

And unless the Government can provide new information to prove otherwise, unfortunately, as of today, we still cannot agree that CECA is net beneficial to Singapore.

Next, I would like to address the policy recommendations that I have made in reply to Minister Lawrence Wong and also Minister Tan See Leng.

First of all, PSP is for an open economy and society. So, our policy recommendations are not meant to make Singapore a closed society or economy and our policy recommendations are meant to make a point – a point that all of us agree upon that we change course. We have to change course. But after we have agreed to that, I would think that we can throw in or rope in a lot of other things and provide the leeway for us to implement those policies. They need not be cast in stone. And among the policies that I have recommended, only the price-related policies or what I call price-control policies, have got a timeframe.

For the quota policies, I have purposely made it no time constraint. I hope you have noticed that. Okay, in terms of the policy: firstly, I think you really need to eliminate the wage disadvantage against Singaporeans. Hence, the EP levy. I do not think Minister Tan See Leng's two attempts to reply to my EP levy as a necessity to equalise the compensation package of the EPs and Singaporeans really answered the question, because the 17% employer's CPF contribution is a direct differential. You cannot avoid that. And being an employer, that will go into his decision-making.

Second, in order to attract more foreign talent, the Government also agrees that the qualifying salaries should go up. So, it is just a matter of how fast. My policy may be a bit faster.

Third, I did not put any time limit to reduce the headcount of work pass holders although I would like actually today if we can come to some conclusion as to what is the number of displaced Singaporeans. So, that becomes a target that we can work on.

But since the Government claims there are very few displacements, then we will not discuss that anymore. But I did not put any time limit to reducing the headcount. I also did not put any time limit to reducing the single nationality number. But for all these, there is an aspirational or planning target, and maybe, we should put a 10% cap on the single nationality on that.

What I am trying to say is on the policies that PSP has recommended, actually, we are very mindful of the effect that the implementation has on the job market and also, indirectly, what kind of messages we are sending to foreigners.

Next, we also have to reflect on how the problems of the foreign talent policy have been allowed to fester, develop and exist for the last 20 years. It tells us a lot about the checks and balances in our governance system.

In particular, we have to question the freedom of information, the tripartite partnership and the conduct of our Government.

First, freedom of information. Throughout this long-running saga on the foreign talent policy, accurate data has been lacking, which has contributed to the large amount of fake news and speculation floating around. In my own experience of preparing for this debate, I cannot find the figures of intra-corporate transferees.

Of course, today, the Minister provided a few more years but the thing is: why give it out piecemeal? You are the one who is generating the data. You should be putting the data in an organised format. Yes, we agree that some data may be sensitive but, please, put it in an organised format for people to analyse. There are so many people in Singapore who will be able to analyse the data if the data is presented regularly and in an organised manner.

Today, Minister Tan See Leng provided, I would say, quite a lot of new data but the new data was not actually available for us to analyse without him telling us. So, the Government is doing what I call guerilla data. Whenever they want to prove a point, they give you a little more data. Look at the chart that Minister Tan See Leng has given us. Below the chart, it is stated Labour Survey Report. That is available. After that, "administrative data from the Research Department of MOM". Without the administrative data, we do not have the whole picture.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock has called for transparency, accountability and independence in matters of national governance. Singaporeans have the right to information in order to make informed opinions and judgement. We urge the Government to introduce the Freedom of Information Act as soon as possible, although we are not the first one to raise this. The Workers' Party has always been talking about this and we thank them for that.

Parliament also has a constitutional role to play in ensuring that sufficient information is provided and policies are thoroughly debated.

To this end, we recommend the setting up of a standing parliamentary select committee in every Ministry, with representatives from both the ruling and alternative parties to improve information flow to facilitate more substantial policy deliberation.

Policy deliberation is about an integrated deliberation. It is not just a legal interpretation. It is more social economic analysis but, on top of that, philosophy, history, how human beings have behaved over history, those are important things for policymaking.

The second point I want to make is tripartism. Tripartism has been practised since Independence. However, in my opinion, the weak NTUC link in the tripartite partnership has become obvious during the foreign talent policy saga.

I believe Mr Patrick Tay and all the NTUC leadership and the NTUC staff are working very hard. But if the overall policy is pointing at a different direction, the results that come out of their hard work speak for itself: lowly-paid workers constantly needing governmental financial support to get by despite working full-time; PMETs in their 40s and 50s finding themselves extremely vulnerable to discrimination; and now, underemployment.

So, NTUC needs a lot of soul searching if it still wants to be relevant in representing the interests of the Singaporean worker.

We also urge Singaporean employers to stand up against discrimination. They will have the most to lose in the long term, if the current situation leads to a radical change of our business culture and mode of operation without a robust Singaporean Core. We urge employers to take the lead in rooting out discrimination in the job market so that we can build a competitive yet fair, multicultural and multinational workforce with Singaporeans at the core.

Lastly, the conduct of the Government. The Government needs to show more empathy rather than pay lip service in order to understand the psyche and the real experiences of the working citizen. Many of them are struggling.

Even if one Singaporean is being discriminated against, we should take action. Let us not argue about majority, widespread or not widespread. To every Singaporean, we have a duty to make sure he is not discriminated against in the job market.

Over the years, while Singaporeans have constantly provided feedback on their predicament, the Government has insisted that all attempts in trying to curb immigration and foreign workforce growth in order to safeguard Singaporeans will end up hurting the Singaporeans themselves.

I quote Dr Amy Khor from her speech at the Population White Paper debate in February 2013, "To curb immigration or foreign workforce growth in order to safeguard Singaporeans could in an ironic twist hurt the very people this reversal is intended to help."

I wonder what Dr Amy Khor has to say now. Before the ironic twist has happened, the silver bullet unleashed by the foreign talent policy has actually shot down many Singaporeans' livelihoods and may hit Singapore soon.

Well, time is a powerful witness. When Singaporeans' anxiety has persisted for the last 10 to 20 years, I think it is difficult to justify that the current policy is not flawed.

Hon Members of this House, contrary to the original promises presented in the Population White Paper, the foreign talent policy has created in Singapore an imbalanced population with a diluted national identity, an economy with inadequate technological innovation and significant displacement of Singaporean workers.

This has been a debate that many Singaporeans are concerned with and anxiously waiting for. This is not just a debate about a particular section of CECA, nor has it anything to do with racism and xenophobia.

It is a debate about alleviating the plight of our PMETs adversely affected by the foreign talent policy. It is a debate about the need to safeguard the Singaporean Core, which is a pillar of our economy and our future. It is a debate about developing our very own talent by looking into new ideas to create opportunities for them.

The PSP position is clear. We recognise the need to stay open as an economy. We are pro-trade but not "free for all" trade. We recognise the need for real foreign talent to complement our Singaporean Core, transferring skills as well as sharing experiences but we want a healthy balance of foreign and local workforce achieved through sound immigration and employment policies.

We want these policies to be designed and executed fairly, with Singaporean interest first. We call for urgent and concrete steps to be taken to alleviate the current problem and we have given suggestions on what needs to be done.

The Prime Minister has said in his National Day message that he recognises the anxieties about jobs and that his Government will make changes over time. But time is of the essence. The changes must start now before this dire situation gets to a point of no return.

Many of us have heard or read about the story of Mr Philip Wen, whom I happen to know. He was a senior vice president of a bank but now has to drive Grab for a living. Please do not be mistaken. There is nothing wrong with driving for Grab as it is an honourable job. But this is a good illustration of underemployment, which many of our PMETs are facing. Their skillsets could have been much better utilised. Yet, they are forced into a no-win situation.

There are many more sad stories, as we discovered through our survey of 750 PMET respondents. It pains us to know that we have our own talent that are not treasured and the very Government that is supposed to look after their interests has the priority elsewhere, maybe on economic growth.

Mr Speaker, Sir, let me close by reminding that democracy is famously described as government of the people, by the people, for the people. So, let us not forget that it is the interest of the people that the Members of this House and this Government are elected to serve. There is nothing wrong in voicing out for them and championing for them.

Singaporeans deserve better. The many Philip Wens out there deserve better. For country, for people. Sir, I beg to move the Motion.

Mr Speaker: Dr Amy Khor.

11.59 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment and Transport (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan): Mr Speaker and Members of this House, let me apologise. I did not mean to take up any more time than is necessary. But I think I need to address or clarify Mr Leong Mun Wai's point. He asked me what I have got to say about the quote from my speech.

Let me say that I would say the same thing. For the last eight hours or so, this is exactly what many of the Members of this House, including Prof Hoon Hian Teck and Minister Lawrence Wong, have said: that Singapore has to continue to remain open and have to welcome some of these foreign talent if we want to continue to thrive and grow. We need some of these people.

I think Minister Lawrence Wong has said we simply do not have enough people. So, I would still say the same thing: that we have to be very careful in saying that we keep the foreigners out, we do not have any of these people there and we will have jobs because, indeed, if we do that, we will really hurt the very people that we are trying to help, and, that is, the Singaporeans that we care about and we want to make sure that we improve their lives, they have good jobs. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Any other clarifications? Mr Leong?

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Senior Minister of State Amy Khor for making that statement. So, we can confirm that, from the debate today, the Government's stance is that the old policies still stand. PSP says you need new policies.

Mr Speaker: Minister Shanmugam.

Mr K Shanmugam: Thank you, Sir. I do not think there is going to be a reprise.

Mr Speaker: I have a feeling it will be, but it is okay.

Mr K Shanmugam: Mr Leong Mun Wai asked me a question or suggested something, so I thought I should clarify through yourself, Mr Speaker, Sir. He said: "Prior to my post on 21 June 2021, I have not mentioned CECA and I asked the Minister Shanmugam and he did not say anything."

I am not quite sure what the purport or the point Mr Leong makes, because Minister Ong Ye Kung had said during the July debate, gave chapter and verse for the various times when PSP leaders had referred to CECA. For example, Dr Tan Cheng Bock on 2 July 2020, that PSP will call for a review of the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and the canard that it allows a free movement of professionals. And others had made some statements, similar statements.

Mr Leong put up his Facebook post along similar lines in June. His Motion, which we debated today, is along the same lines. All of this is on the record and I had made it clear. So, I am not quite sure what point he was making.

I am not asking him to clarify, because it is past midnight. All I am saying is, the reason I did not respond to him was because the record is clear. He associated himself with all these statements unless now he is saying: well, those are racist, but you know, I did not make them.

But he associated himself with them. I think we can leave it at that. That is my answer.

Mr Speaker: Mr Lawrence Wong.

Mr Lawrence Wong: Mr Speaker, I just wanted to respond very quickly to Mr Leong Mun Wai's last comment. That he concluded the Government's old policies remain. That was his conclusion. That is an erroneous conclusion. My Motion specifically states that the Government will continue to update and improve our policies. Our policies are not static. They continue to be improved.

What we object to are muddle-headed policies that will lead us to the path of ruin and what Mr Leong suggested, what the PSP suggested, in our opinion, will get us there. I was flummoxed when Mr Leong said: if we do not change course, Singapore will remain a low value-add economy. Really? Low value-add economy today? Mr Leong, have you seen the economic data? Today's economy? I think if we change course to adopt your policies, we will truly be a low value-add economy.

Mr Speaker: Mr Pritam Singh.

Mr Pritam Singh: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to clarify a point made by Minister Lawrence Wong vis-à-vis his request that we vote against the PSP Motion. We feel strongly about the amendments that we sought to amend the PSP Motion. Speaker disallowed it because it was deemed to a substantive change to the Motion. But the reason why we opined that the change was important is because we have a different view on FTAs and CECA compared to the PSP.

Similarly, I have shared with the House why I sought to move an amendment to the Minister's Motion and we feel strongly about those amendments as well. We have a difference of opinion on that.

On both Motions, the WP will vote accordingly.

Mr Speaker: Mr Desmond Choo.

Mr Desmond Choo (Tampines): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do have to apologise to everybody for holding things up, but Mr Leong Mun Wai had a specific comment. He says that the NTUC, or the Labour Movement, should do some soul-searching.

I did some soul-searching and I hope he did as well. I am sure he also benefited from what NTUC has provided over the years through our grocery programme. I am sure he did.

But I do want to seek some clarification from him. As he was in the 1980s, building a derivatives platform in Tokyo, was he aware that in the 1985 recession, NTUC and the unions, together with the Government, worked with workers to take a 15% cut in CPF to help Singapore go through a difficult time? Whether he also remembered the Asian Financial Crisis, when the Labour Movement worked with the Government and the people of Singapore to go through a difficult period of time? And during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, under the leadership of then Secretary-General, Mr Lim Swee Say, to upturn the downturn? So, I do not think NTUC is the weak link in tripartism.

And I want to also emphasise: we always do deep reflection and soul-searching about what is the best thing that we can do for workers.

The best thing that we need to do for workers is to care for them in the long term, we seek to protect workers, we care for their jobs. But protecting workers does not mean a zero-sum game. We are worried that if investments go away, if companies will suffer. If companies suffer, then there will be no jobs for workers.

This is something that we think about day and night. This is the soul-searching that I do. I have it here on my phone because this is something that I look at all the time. So, I want to seek a clarification from Mr Leong Mun Wai, after the three pointers that I have given to him, does he still agree that NTUC is the weak link? If he still so agrees that NTUC is the weak link, I would very much like to invite him to NTUC and share with him the work that we have done since our founding in 1961. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: I thank the Member Desmond Choo for the clarification. I appreciate all the work that NTUC has done for Singaporeans. In fact, NTUC was formed, no, FairPrice was formed around the time of the oil shock, the oil crisis, right? I was still a small boy. I remember going to the Community Centre to collect rice from NTUC FairPrice. I do not think it was called FairPrice at that time.

So, yes, the things done by NTUC, we Singaporeans, we all know. In fact, in this House, we are all for Singapore. We all know. We are just trying to say what is the right direction forward.

When it comes to talking about general welfare for workers and all that, I think NTUC has done a tremendous job as well. But when it comes to wage policy, I think there is some room for improvement. Sometimes, it is not because of NTUC. There is an overall national policy called foreign talent policy. And then, there is some preference to make sure the businesses do well before the workers. Okay, I mean, that may lead to another debate. But maybe suffice to say that, okay, we think that there is some room for improvement as far as wage policy is concerned.

I hope that answers the question.

Mr Speaker: Members will be glad to know that I have prepared breakfast. I did not mean that seriously though. Mr Desmond Choo.

Mr Desmond Choo: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just have one last point, just to clarify what Mr Leong Mun Wai has said.

He said that we ought to do better. Of course, we definitely want to do better for workers. And that, perhaps in the wages side of the house, we can do better. I think this is something that we always strive to do our best. We do not want to overstate the work that we have done for the Progressive Wage Model, but it is precisely a way that we can implement good wages for workers by making sure that it is sustainable. So to say that NTUC and the Labour Movement are not doing their part on wage policies, I am sure we are as confused as he is in the last eight hours of not doing homework. I think that is important.

The second thing that we must note is that NTUC and the Labour Movement have been an important part of the National Wages Council. Year after year, we deliberate, trying to find out what are the best wage policies for our workers across different segments. It is a difficult thing to do. We have fierce exchanges with our employers, with our Government side of the house, but we need to do that because we need wage increases to be sustainable, create a pie, so that our workers can go home and come back to work tomorrow again with their job intact.

So, I do appreciate what Mr Leong Mun Wai has done in the financial sector, but I do not want what he has said today to stand as the record for the generations of unionists before me, who have dedicated their time, their blood, their sweat, to better the lot of workers in Singapore. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan Yia Swam.

Dr Tan Yia Swam (Nominated Member): I want to thank PSP for sharing its survey on 700 people and sharing some of the ground sentiments. In healthcare, we actually have problems finding nurses, clinic assistants and radiographers for these trained jobs. So, I am just wondering could there be a mismatch of trained Singaporeans in getting these jobs?

And I hear a lot of concern over foreigners and foreign talent. I would like to ask the PSP, what do you think of Singaporeans working overseas? In a global economy, I would think that there will always be flow of people, crossing nations for jobs, so would our Singaporeans working overseas then be discriminated against as foreigners?

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: I thank Dr Tan Yia Swam for the clarification.

One on the lack of manpower in certain sectors, as we have said, we are not saying that we clamp down on foreigners immediately. We are saying that we have to chart a path. Because this path going down, does it mean that we need more and more foreigners? That cannot be the case, right? Because that is not something that Singaporeans want.

So, we may need to chart a new path now. But at the ground level, there are a lot of different requirements. So, we will handle it accordingly.

Mr Speaker: Mr Abdul Samad.

Mr Abdul Samad: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am not so sure what is the right word to use. When Mr Leong Mun Wai spoke about NTUC, he is not doing justice; I took it very badly because I am a walking union leader. My job is not full-time working for the union. It is a mixture of sacrifices I have to make.

When you said that wages can be better, I would like to share with this House what you have seen and what you have heard based on just the Progressive Wage Model (PMW) is not very reflective. Every union, through the branches that they represent, every time when we renew a collective agreement, we make sure the workers are benchmarked to the type of work that they do. We review their job scope, pay them accordingly.

As we know, recently, when NTUC launched Worker 4.0, we talked about the three Ws: wages, welfare and work prospect. Wages is always on our mind. So, it is not right to say that NTUC has not done our part. We have been doing it since it was founded. I am a beneficiary of past great union leaders. Some might have been Nominated Members of Parliament like the late A Nithiah Nandan. We go to the table, we quarrel over wages, even though we know at the end of the day, there would be some sacrifices to be made.

But I want to make it clear. NTUC is here for the workers. Their wages, their welfare, their work prospect will continue to be our main aim. When we talk about NTUC FairPrice, we are talking about mitigating the cost of living compared to other merchants.

We are a holistic institution that upholds the belief that every worker needs to be paid due respect for what they have contributed to the company. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Any final clarifications? Ms Janet Ang.

12.17 am

Ms Janet Ang: I am so sorry; it is past midnight and I am 62! [ Laughter. ] Mr Speaker, if I may, I am really humbled that Mr Leong Mun Wai called my name in his speech. So, I cannot help but have to stand up.

He mentioned the data that I shared in my speech that came from the survey of American companies, a preview of the survey that the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) shared with me. They are real employers who are hiring and they have found the gaps they found. So, I am not sure what Mr Leong is disagreeing with me about. It is from a survey. They are real employers. They have found those gaps.

We can do a couple of things. One is engage these employers and really, like I said in my speech, understand what those relevant skills that our people are missing are, what are the relevant experience that is missing, and then we go figure out how to get the right approach.

But since I have managed "United Nations" employees in IBM before, I will share with Members – which is what I said in my speech – one tip that Singaporean workers need to recognise. We have to be brave to speak up. We will always have all our things in our heads: "I am so good at all these. That guy is not so good. Why is he taking the job?"

But if you do not speak up and you do not tell anybody why you deserve that job, you will not get that job. Because of the competition, Mr Leong, which is my second point. I was going to ask you because you did say that the paradigm has shifted from our time. I am 62 years old. I do not know how old you are. But, yes, the paradigm has definitely shifted. So, do you not agree that competition for most jobs is not just among the talent that are onshore in Singapore, whether local or foreign, but, really, a global one?

Again, back to my point. If, as Singaporean PMETs, we do not speak up, we do not ask for the job, we do not show hunger for our jobs, then, of course, those who speak louder, those who are more enthusiastic, those who appear more hungry, will get the job.

So, my point is, Mr Leong, you have been a private sector executive yourself. Do you give the job to the individual who is entitled to the job, almost like – and this one, a little bit scary to say it – Malaysia's bumiputra policy, perhaps? Or do you give the job to the guy who has the skills to do the job and, better yet, has the added characteristics of passion for the business, hunger for the business and a willingness to go the extra mile?

So, Mr Leong, since you asked me those questions, if you could help me understand whether I got you wrong. [ Applause. ]

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong.

Mr Leong Mun Wai: I thank the Member Janet Ang, for raising her clarification. It is past midnight. The only thing I want to confirm is that, yes, I am 62 years old. So, that is why I know we are from the same generation. That is why I related the example.

But I do not think we want to go further into explaining what you just said because it will enter another debate. I hope to have another opportunity in the near future to talk about wage policy and retirement. But that will be for another forum.

I hope that is okay for Ms Janet Ang.

Mr Speaker: Prof Hoon.

Prof Hoon Hian Teck: Thank you, Mr Speaker. A reference was made to the lump of labour fallacy. I think we all agree that, in essence, that is not a good description of labour markets. And I will just conclude by applying that to two settings.

I think, first, with reference to what Member Desmond Choo illustrated, the understanding that the lump of labour fallacy – which is that there are only 100 jobs and, so, if you have more people than that, some other people take the jobs, the others would not have it. In fact, that does not apply, first, in a setting when the economy is itself subject to adverse shocks, recessions.

Mr Desmond Choo pointed very well to the episode in 1984 to 1985. In the face of a sharp recession, in fact, the number of jobs substantially decreased. Unemployment sharply went up. There were major retrenchments. Job destruction was very high.

I think the remarkable thing about Singapore when you look at how it faced its challenges over the decades is the ability to demonstrate the lump of labour fallacy does not apply even in an adverse situation.

In 1984, I was an Honours year student graduating from NUS. Prime Minister Lee was then actually directing the economic committee that came out with the report. The remarkable thing that came out of that episode – really remarkable, because it was the sharpest recession since 1965 – was the ability to bring together union leaders, employers and the Government to convince the people that you will accept a 15-percentage-point cut in your CPF. That amounts to 12% of your wages, really.

I had the opportunity in 2010 when Prof Paul Romer, who won the Nobel Prize in 2018, to meet him through my association with Prof Edmund Phelps who was my teacher at the University of Columbia. Paul had, for some years before he won the Nobel, been very interested to visit various countries to talk about policy. He was in Singapore. He was in the International Advisory Panel with the University at that time. He came to me and said, at Prof Phelps' suggestion, "Would you like to take a trip with me to South Africa?" It was a one-day conference, where they were going to bring together their business leaders and their trade union leaders to talk about the fact that the unemployment rate among the young people was close to 50%.

I had a chance to tell them about the Singapore story, with trade union members all in the room, about how we were able to convince labour to accept the 15-percentage-point cut and, of course, with the understanding that the CPF rate will be restored.

The challenge ahead for Singapore is understanding that the lump of labour fallacy still does not apply over the long term. The challenge for Singapore, really, is to recognise that the sources of growth going forward have to come with a continued integration into the global economy. I think Minister Lawrence Wong has demonstrated and illustrated that very well. It is a view that I share.

The challenge for Singapore is, in the next stage, to demonstrate this. Because we have had five decades of being able to find a new way to reinvent ourselves, I think there is a great reason to have great optimism to show that the lump of labour fallacy will not apply.

At the heart of it, I believe it is, indeed, right in that point in the Motion by Minister Lawrence Wong, which I have a deep sympathy for: that Singapore's growth must continue with economic openness. That includes openness to trade, capital and people in the right way. [ A pplause. ]

12.27 am

Mr Speaker Mr Speaker:

Mr Speaker: Okay. We have now finally come to the conclusion of the debate. I shall put the necessary questions to the House for decision.

We will first deal with the Minister for Finance's Motion on "Securing Singaporeans' Jobs and Livelihoods". We have two substantive amendments by Mr Pritam Singh and a consequential amendment.

Mr Pritam Singh's amendment number 1 is in part (c) of Minister Wong's Motion to delete the word "supports" at the start of the sentence and to replace it with "calls for stronger".

Mr Pritam Singh's amendment number 2 is to insert a new limb (f), which reads, "calls on the Government to proactively release information on jobs and employment prospects of Singaporeans and the costs and benefits of Free Trade Agreements and foreign worker policies, with a view to formulating better policies to ensure Singaporeans secure good jobs in Singapore and are not disadvantaged when seeking employment".

If this new limb is agreed to, Mr Pritam Singh's consequential amendment is to remove the word "and" at the end of part (d) and to include the word "and" at the end of part (e).

We will deal with the first amendment by Mr Pritam Singh.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out, be there left out", put and negatived.

Mr Speaker : This amendment falls. Part (c) of the original Motion remains in its original form.

Mr Pritam Singh's amendment number 2 is to have a new limb (f), with the words "calls on the Government to proactively release information on jobs and employment prospects of Singaporeans and the costs and benefits of Free Trade Agreements and foreign worker policies, with a view to formulating better policies to ensure Singaporeans secure good jobs in Singapore and are not disadvantaged when seeking employment", to be added at the end of the Motion.

Question, "That the words proposed to be added, be there added", put and negatived.

Mr Speaker : The amendment to have a new limb (f) falls. As a result, no consequential amendment will be made. The original question is before the House.

Original Motion put and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That this House:

(a) acknowledges Singaporeans’ anxieties about jobs and competition in a globalised and fast-changing economy;

(b) affirms Singapore’s need to stay open and connected to the world in order to grow and prosper;

(c) supports Government actions to manage the population of foreign manpower, ensure fair treatment by employers, and invest in education and upskilling, to create more good jobs for Singaporeans;

(d) calls on the Government to continue to update and improve its policies to secure the well-being and livelihoods of Singaporeans in an uncertain post-pandemic world; and

(e) deplores attempts to spread misinformation about free trade agreements like the Singapore-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), stir up racism and xenophobia, and cause fear and anxiety amongst Singaporeans.

Mr Pritam Singh: Mr Speaker, I beg your indulgence. Can the Workers' Party Members of Parliament have their dissent recorded, please?

Mr Speaker: Yes, we will. All the Workers' Party Members?

Mr Pritam Singh: Yes, Sir.

Mr Speaker: Thank you.

Dissent by

Hon Members: Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis, Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song, Ms He Ting Ru, Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim, Ms Sylvia Lim, Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap, Mr Leon Perera, Mr Pritam Singh and Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong, as recorded.

Mr Speaker: We will now deal with Mr Leong Mun Wai's Motion on Foreign Talent Policy.

Question, "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" put, and negatived.