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SINGAPORE: Naming companies that are on the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) watch list is “counterproductive” as it thwarts local hiring efforts by suspect companies, Human Resources Minister Josephine Teo said in Parliament on Friday (September 4).
Ms Teo spoke on the fifth day of Parliament in response to calls from various Members of Parliament (MPs) to name the companies on the list, companies suspected of observing biased hiring practices.
There are currently 400 companies on the list for having a higher proportion of foreign professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMET) compared to their industry peers or higher concentrations of a single foreign national source, Teo said.
But these companies – 1,200 companies have been vetted through the FCF since 2016 – have not broken any rules, he said, and investigations found that some employers were not really familiar with local hiring channels or whose hiring had been limited by directives. imposed by headquarters abroad. .
Applications for job passes are delayed while authorities hire these companies to help them improve their human resource practices, he added, and many companies go off the watch list within a year.
“The measures we take for these companies must be proportionate and also consider the impact on their existing local workforce,” he said.
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“In most cases, employers on the FCF watch list have responded to the engagement efforts of TAFEP (Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices) and expanded their employment of local PMETs with the help of Workforce Singapore ”Ms. Teo said.
“Naming these companies would have likely frustrated their local hiring efforts and is ultimately counterproductive,” he added.
For “the minority” who do not make the required adjustments, their work pass privileges remain suspended.
This year, 90 employers’ job pass privileges have been suspended due to FCF violations, Teo said.
Those who actually have discriminatory hiring practices, such as shortlisting foreign candidates, have revealed their names, he said, referring to how MOM published several names in January this year.
WHAT HAPPENS TO COMPANIES THAT DO NOT CHANGE?
In an exchange following Ms. Teo’s response, MP He Ting Ru asked if there are government-linked companies on the watch list and how many companies on the watch list are “persistent criminals”.
Ms Teo said that there are no companies linked to Temasek and that less than 10 percent of the companies have yet to get off the list.
“And the reason I don’t give them a very specific number is because even if the company has dropped off the watch list, it doesn’t mean that we stop seeing them,” he said.
“If they go back to the old hiring patterns and we are concerned about their workforce profile again, then they can be put back on the watch list.”
READ: MPs Call for Companies to Be More Transparent on Foreign Hiring, Push to Prioritize Singaporeans
MP Patrick Tay asked if the authorities could name recalcitrant employers who have not fixed their practices after more than a year and give the breakdown of companies on the list according to size.
The name of these companies would depend on what the objective is, Ms. Teo replied.
“If our goal is still to try to get them to improve their HR practices, what is a more effective way to do it: appoint them or continue to suspend their work pass privileges?” she said.
In some cases, some of these organizations decided to leave Singapore after they were unable to meet the recruitment requirements, he added.
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“And you don’t even need to name them. They find that this set of conditions is not what they would like to deal with, ”he said.
“We accept that and whether you name them or not wouldn’t have made much of a difference. But the fact that he has reduced his work pass privileges, that’s what has really made the difference, “he added.
