FOREIGN WORKERS (Trends of employment)

Mr Robert Chua Teck Chew asked the Minister for Labour what are the latest trends of employment of foreign workers by the various sectors of our economy and their long-term economic or social impact and whether the Government is considering any changes to its foreign worker policy to counter any undesirable trends.

The Minister for Labour (Dr Lee Boon Yang): Sir, the demand for foreign workers varies from economic sector to sector. In the manufacturing sector, despite advances in technology, more higher value-added investments and redistribution of labour-intensive operations to the region, the foreign worker population has remained largely stable since 1990. In fact, there has been a slight pick-up in employment of foreign workers in the manufacturing sector since the early part of this year. The marine sector is currently facing a slowdown in business. Nevertheless, the foreign worker population in the marine sector has been increasing since the middle of this year. The domestic maid population also continues to increase, although the increase has been moderated by the higher levy of $300 per domestic maid which was introduced since 1st April 1992. The strong growth in the service and construction sectors has resulted in heavy demand for more foreign workers. In particular, the construction sector benefitted from the liberalisation of the dependency ratio from 1:3 to 1:5 foreign workers since November 1992.

Sir, in the longer term, we must achieve more capital intensive, higher technology and higher value-added economic enterprises. This is the only solution to maintaining our competitiveness with a base of only three million Singaporeans. We cannot hope to compete in the labour intensive industries against our neighbours with far larger population bases. The emergence of India, Vietnam and the PRC as market-oriented economies makes it even more urgent for us to move away from cheap-labour activities. Already the impact of having more than 200,000 foreign workers in Singapore is being felt, such as the difficulties of housing the foreign workers and the problems created when they congregate in certain parts of Singapore.

1.30 pm

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No. 21(3), Questions Nos. 14 and 15 have been postponed to the sitting on 11th November 1993. Written answer to Question No. 13 on the Order Paper is reproduced in the section, 'Oral Answers to Questions Not Reached' (Cols. 993 - 994).]