SINGAPORE: Singapore announced late last week that it was looking to reduce the country's reliance on foreign workers in the country. It said that it wants to boost productivity of its local workforce as part of a restructuring of its economy, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced on Friday. The deputy PM said that the maximum number of foreigners working in manufacturing would be reduced to no more than 60 percent, a drop in five percent from previous statutes. “It is an effort to increase our own local communities who need to work just as much as anyone else. We want to give them an opportunity,” the deputy PM's office told Bikyamasr.com. Companies in the services sector now can rely on foreign labor for no more than 45 percent of their total workforce, compared with 50 percent previously. An estimated 500 manufacturing companies and 8,500 service companies should be affected by the changes. The finance minister said that a year of slow growth ahead is a good chance to reduce the reliance on foreign labor. “All firms can then take this into account in their future hiring decisions,” he said. Overall, the number of S pass holders a company can employ — usually mid-level skilled foreigners — will be capped at 20 percent of its total workforce, down from 25 percent previously. The move has been praised by economists, who say that Singapore must concentrate on boosting its local economy and its people before allowing foreigners into the country. “It will take time for these measures to have an effect on businesses' demand for foreign workers. The foreign workforce has in the meantime grown rapidly, by 7.5 percent per year over the last two years and is now at about one-third of our total workforce,” the deputy PM said. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/tJM2X Tags: Economy, Foreigners, Singapore, Workers Section: Business, East Asia, Latest News
