Firms with weak S’porean core to face more scrutiny

SINGAPORE — Companies with a weak Singaporean core of workers will soon come under closer scrutiny and find it tougher to hire foreign professionals, managers and executives (PMEs).

From October, companies will need to publish the salary range offered for job vacancies placed on the Jobs Bank, or have their subsequent applications for Employment Passes rejected.

The Jobs Bank portal was launched last July as part of the Fair Consideration Framework to ensure Singaporeans are fairly considered for job opportunities.

The new requirement will provide “greater transparency” to job seekers, whose considerations would include salary, said Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say today (July 8).

At a media briefing today, he also stressed the need to enhance the quality of foreign PMEs, who make up about one-third of the local workforce.

PMEs are increasingly an area of concern, with the labour report for the first quarter of this year showing that more than half of PMETs, a group that includes technicians, made redundant did not find new jobs within six months. This was a higher proportion than those in clerical or cleaning positions.

In January, the Employment and Employability Institute also said PMEs make up one in two who has sought help in career guidance and enquired about job fairs; the proportion five years ago was one in five.

Mr Lim said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has also been working with about 150 companies — which tend to be in industries such as finance and information technology — found to have weaker commitment to the Fair Consideration Framework and a weak Singaporean core, based on indicators such as industry averages of the number of Singaporeans in the particular sector.

The ministry had also received complaints of discriminatory hiring practices in some of these firms.

The MOM will require these companies to submit more information to show if Singaporeans have been considered fairly in the hiring process. They will have to submit the number of Singaporean applicants and interviewees for vacancies, as well as plans for developing their Singaporean core of workers, for instance.

“The weaker you are in your Singaporean core, the less committed in observing the Fair Consideration Framework, the closer we are going to scrutinise your Employment Pass application,” said Mr Lim, who added that 70 to 80 per cent of companies were found to be relatively committed to the framework and with a strong Singaporean core of workers.

In the area of qualifications of foreign PMEs — among the MOM’s criteria when processing work passes — the ministry will now reject applicants with “doubtful” qualifications such as those from degree mills. It currently bans applicants with forged qualifications from working in Singapore and there have been about 5,000 such incidents over the past three years.

In April, the Infocomm Development Authority reported it was looking into an employee who had an unaccredited master’s degree, but later said the employee did not mislead them during the job application process.

A degree is doubtful if an individual could pay for it without needing to undergo lessons, said Mr Lim. The MOM will also look at databases and work with foreign embassies to check on the quality of foreign degrees, he said.

And to improve the quality of foreign PMEs working here, there will now be greater emphasis on relevant experience. “We don’t want Singapore to be a training ground for foreign manpower; they should (also) be here to contribute,” said Mr Lim.