Median wage for PRs, foreigners in financial sector higher than S'poreans' due to various factors: Ong Ye Kung

• Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said median wages for Singaporeans in the financial sector are S$6,000 to S$8,000
• For permanent residents and foreigners, the figure is S$8,000 to S$10,000
• Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said that 5,280 Singaporeans had been retrenched in the first half of 2020
• 11,000 Singaporeans were temporarily laid off in the same period
• This is one-third the number of non-citizens who were laid off

SINGAPORE — Across the financial sector, the median monthly wage band for Singaporeans is S$6,000 to S$8,000, while that of permanent residents (PRs) and foreigners is S$8,000 to S$10,000, said Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung in Parliament on Friday (Sept 4).

About half of Singaporeans in senior positions in the sector earn above S$30,000 a month, the same proportion as foreigners. Almost two-thirds of PRs in senior positions earn above that figure, Mr Ong said.

He offered this “broad view of data” in response to a question posed by Workers’ Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Sengkang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Louis Chua on the monthly salary of the 25th, 50th and 75th percentile of Singaporeans, PRs and foreigners across the financial sector.

Mr Ong, who answered the question on behalf of Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is also Minister-in-Charge of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), told Mr Chua that such a breakdown would not be meaningful as it would not be comparing “like for like”.

“A foreigner at the 50th percentile of foreigner’s wage levels in the financial sector could be hired for a very different role from a Singaporean at the 50th percentile of Singaporean wage levels,” said Mr Ong, who is an MAS board member.

Both sets of data that he shared are to be expected as financial institutions often bring in higher-earning foreigners to perform specialised or regional and global roles, said Mr Ong.

Singapore’s rules also constrain the flow of foreigners who come in at the lower level.

“One would also expect those with stronger profiles and track records in Singapore to be more successful in attaining PR status.”

As such, the data reflects Singapore’s policies to regulate the flow of foreigners and selectively grant PR status to foreign professionals, managers and executives, explained Mr Ong.

Without regulations to control the flow of Employment Pass (EP) holders or criteria to attain PR status, these earning differentials will “naturally narrow or disappear”, he said.

Last month, the Government announced that the minimum qualifying salary for EP holders in the financial sector would be S$5,000 a month from Dec 1, which is higher than the S$4,500 level for other sectors.

OVER 5,000 CITIZENS RETRENCHED IN FIRST HALF OF 2020

Separately, Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo said preliminary data showed that 5,280 Singaporeans had been retrenched in the first half of this year. She was responding to questions posed by Ms He Ting Ru, MP for Sengkang GRC.

Ms He also asked how many Singaporeans have been placed on unpaid leave due to Covid-19. To this, Mrs Teo responded that in the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) compilation of labour statistics, being placed on unpaid leave is captured as “temporary layoffs”.

During the same period, about 11,000 Singaporeans were temporarily laid off, one-third the number of non-citizens, said Mrs Teo.

On how many Singaporeans have had their pay reduced by more than half since the start of the circuit breaker period, Mrs Teo said that from April 6 to Aug 20, this group comprised “a small minority” and added that MOM does not have the breakdown between Singaporeans and PRs affected by such pay cuts.