[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – As of May 1 this year, foreigners staying in Singapore with Dependant’s Passes will need a work pass to work here, rather than a letter of consent.
This means that their employers will need to apply for an employment pass (EP), an S pass or a work permit for them, and the corresponding salary, the maximum dependency ratio limit and the rate will apply. If they are already working, this should be done after their current consent letter expires.
Human Resources Minister Josephine Teo announced the change on Wednesday (March 3) during her ministry’s budget debate, saying it is “to be consistent with recent job approval moves.”
It noted that Dependant’s Pass holders who have applied to work in Singapore through a letter of consent represent about 1 percent of all work pass holders. Most meet the prevailing job approval criteria, but those who don’t will have to stop working here.
As of June 2020, there were around 1.1 million work pass holders in Singapore, excluding foreign domestic workers, suggesting that there were around 11,000 dependent pass holders working on consent letters.
The holder of an Employment Pass or S Pass must earn a fixed monthly salary of at least $ 6,000 in order to bring their spouse or unmarried children under the age of 21 to Singapore with Dependant’s Passes.
Currently, dependents of S Pass holders have to apply for a relevant work pass to work in Singapore, while dependents of qualified foreign professionals or entrepreneurs with EPs, EntrePasses or Custom Employment Passes can request a letter of consent.
When the change occurs, only Dependant’s Pass holders who are business owners can work with a letter of consent, and only if they own at least 30 percent of the company’s shares and their business generates local employment. They must employ at least one Singaporean or permanent resident earning at least the current local qualifying salary (currently $ 1,400) and make contributions to the employee’s Central Provident Fund accounts for at least three months.
More details will be provided later.
Ms Teo also set her ministry’s priorities in managing the foreign workforce and balancing the need for foreigners in some sectors while strengthening Singapore’s core, about which several MPs asked on Tuesday.
“Our primary goal is always to serve the interests of Singaporean workers. Access to foreign workers is meant to help grow a bigger economic pie than we could otherwise. Hence, the foreign workforce it should act as a complement to our local workforce, “he said. .
At the S Pass level, which is for foreigners earning a fixed monthly salary of at least $ 2,500, employers should expect more changes to the S Pass rules during this decade, Ms. Teo said.
The S Pass policy has been tightened in the last two years, with the sectoral fees reduced and the qualification salary increased twice last year. Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced a cut in the manufacturing sector’s S Pass quota from 20% to 15% by 2023 in last month’s budget speech.
In response to the request of Mr. Edward Chia (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) for a more “surgical” application of the work permit and the S Pass quota in the subsectors, Ms. Teo said that there is a limit regarding the differentiation of the service sector. .
The most pressing subsectors already hire the vast majority of work permit holders in services, and relaxing the fees for each of them would be equivalent to increasing the overall fee, he said.
She said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will instead focus on helping companies become more labor efficient while strengthening their Singapore core.
He added that periodic adjustments will continue to be made to the local qualifying wage, which is the minimum wage for locals to count toward a company’s employee count when calculating work permit and S Pass quota, to ensure locals don’t are hired with a token salary. It will not be increased this year so that companies have time to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ms Teo said that for PE qualified foreigners, MOM’s goal is twofold: first, to ensure that foreign professionals complement locals, and second, to ensure that employers practice fair hiring and enhance the diversity of their professionals. , foreign managers, executives and technicians. .
The qualifying salary for EP holders was increased twice last year and the ministry will explore possible improvements, he said.
“The salary threshold is by no means a perfect guardian of quality, but it is easy to understand and manage,” he said.
He explained that this method is favored by a PE quota, which would limit Singapore’s ability to compete for the most innovative investments amid the global shortage of technology and digital skills, hurting Singaporeans’ long-term career prospects.
He added that implementing levies for EP incumbents, as requested last week by non-constituent MP Leong Mun Wai of the Progress Singapore Party, cannot be helpful either, as companies can employ foreign knowledge workers remotely.
Leong asked on Wednesday whether Singaporean workers have been disadvantaged because foreigners do not have to make contributions to the Central Provident Fund, and there is no requirement for succession planning when companies apply for grants.
Ms. Teo responded that last year, amid the pandemic, the foreign workforce contracted by more than 180,000, while the local workforce grew modestly.
“So in that perspective, in what way has the local workforce been at a disadvantage?” she asked.
Capacity building
The Skills Transfer Program will run for three years, until the end of September 2024, to promote the transfer of skills to the locals.
The program, launched in 2017, provides up to 90 percent funding for company or industry projects to attract foreign specialists to train locals or send local workers to undertake training jobs abroad, in areas where Singapore lacks experience.
About $ 5 million has been committed so far to support projects in 20 sectors, Ms Teo said, adding that the program continues to be a useful complement to other schemes that support the transformation of the company and the development of the local population. .
DPM Heng announced the extension in his budget speech last month. He said that as of the end of last year, more than 140 companies and more than 970 Singaporeans and permanent residents have benefited, or are expected to benefit, from 40 projects under the scheme.
The head of the Workers’ Party, Pritam Singh (Aljunied GRC), asked during the debate on Wednesday if there is “more to be desired” from the scheme in view of the amount of money that has been spent on it so far, and if there are any plans. to improve. use in all industries.
“I agree that there is a lot of room for him to change the rules of the game,” he said. For example, it could make it easier for Singaporeans to gain the skills for the high-value manufacturing that Singapore wants to move to.
Ms. Teo responded that the objective of the expansion is to encourage greater acceptance of the program. But he added that the government re-examines all its business support schemes from time to time and rationalizes them periodically.
[ad_2]
