Firms offering higher pay due to manpower crunch, thus driving up costs: SBF survey
Office workers in Singapore's Central Business District.
Top challenges for businesses
Rising manpower costs and the lack of available manpower have emerged as some of the top challenges that companies face, according to an annual survey by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
The survey was done between July 26 and Oct 1 this year and polled close to 1,100 businesses on how the pandemic has affected their business this year and their outlook going forward.
The following are some of what the survey showed.
Top business priorities in 2021
- Growing revenue (49 per cent)
- Ensuring positive cashflow (38 per cent)
- Attracting or retaining talent (35 per cent)
Top business challenges in the past year
- Manpower cost (48 per cent)
- Demand uncertainty (48 per cent)
- Travel restrictions (47 per cent)
- Availability of manpower (41 per cent)
Manpower challenges that businesses said they faced
- Rising manpower cost (62 per cent)
- Higher costs from new foreign manpower policies (50 per cent)
- Attracting or retaining younger workers (45 per cent)
- Strict foreign manpower policies that limit supply of foreign workers (44 per cent)
Hiring outlook
- 35 per cent of companies are looking to increase hiring, compared with just 18 per cent last year
- Only 6 per cent are planning to cut their headcount, which is much lower than the 23 per cent last year
- 35 per cent are also planning to increase their employees' wages, higher than the 28 per cent with such plans last year
- 30 per cent are looking to invest in training staff members, as opposed to 19 per cent last year
