Daily Lessons from Life 21 September 2013 - Fair Employment Legislations in Singapore?

"SINGAPORE: New employment rules that could require firms here to explore more avenues to hire locals before foreigners are expected to be announced soon. Union leaders said the framework will aim to ensure fair consideration is given to Singaporeans first. Industry players Channel NewsAsia spoke with are hoping for fair and sensible rules that will not make it any more onerous for companies to find talent. Foreigners now make up a third of Singapore's total workforce and there has been growing concern that employers are by-passing locals and hiring foreigners instead. A spokesperson from the Manpower Ministry said while that a sizeable number of participants at one of its Our Singapore Conversation session felt that the playing field is somewhat uneven between Singaporeans and foreigners for job opportunities, most recognised the need for foreigners to augment our local workforce. The ministry added some participants also felt that there's a need to ensure that Singaporean fresh graduates are not disadvantaged when competing with foreigners at the Professional, Manager and Executive (PME) level. The labour movement too has its concerns. Patrick Tay, director of legal services departments and PME Unit at the National Trades Union Congress, said: "I've met many of these local PMEs in various sectors and they have shared with me personally their stories. One particular story is where this IT professional - highly qualified, great credentials - working in quite a large company, sharing with me about his grievance. He was given a golden handshake and asked to leave the company. Subsequently after he left the company, his fellow ex-colleagues shared that a foreigner was hired to take over his position. "There are also cases where in terms of hiring practices, certain hiring managers tend to prefer their own kind in the sense that certain hiring managers belonging to certain nationalities may hire people from the same nationality." It is hoped that a Fair Consideration framework will address this. Employers though cautioned that this should not make the hiring process more onerous in an already tight labour market. Small firms like local electronics design company D'Crypt are already struggling with tighter restrictions in foreign worker quotas as well as higher salary caps for skilled foreigners. D'Crypt's chief operating officer Chew Hwee Boon said: "Even with this shortlisting of putting Singaporeans first, we can't find enough of local Singaporeans who want to do R&D work, who want to do technical work and we have no choice but to turn to foreigners." One suggestion is for micro-firms or sectors where niche skills are required, be exempted from the labour market test. Another way to retain the Singapore core in the workforce is to ensure that skills and expertise from foreign employees are transferred to Singaporeans through mentorship schemes. Singaporeans welcome such a framework in place because of the sheer number of foreigners working here. Statistics from the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices show that about half of the number of complaints it receives have got to do with discrimination, relating to nationalities." FINALLY someone from the ESTABLISHMENT is coming out to SUPPORT and ADVOCATE that Singaporean PMEs need help to avoid BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST in their OWN COUNTRY!! Lessons for me are: 1. Singaporeans have NO PROBLEM with Foreign Workers (FWs) who come and work as construction workers to build the massive infrastructure Singapore needs since NOT MANY Singaporeans want to do these jobs! I am GLAD that this is FINALLY, it seems, to be been CLEARLY understood by the Singapore national leaders. This saves the anger and puzzlement that Singaporeans keep hearing from our national leaders that we must 'embrace FWs' as if we DON"T UNDERSTAND nd felt being insulted!; 2. Foreign employers MUST understand that Singapore has a 'world class educational system that other countries, even some of the most advanced countries in the world, come to learn from us'. So, Singaporean graduates MUST BE one of the best in the world! IF NOT, challenge the Minister of Education on HOW COME the Singaporean graduates from Singapore's world class educational system are NOT up to par?! No forgetting MANY world famous MNCs and Global Companies like GE, IBM, HP, Sony, Royal Shell, etc, etc were here 3-4 decades ago and had TRAINED and DEVELOPED many Singapore local talents to head Regional Jobs. So, Singapore has Talent! Old and young ones. All very good ones. :-); p/s: I was VERY ANNOYED some time back when a group of foreign Chamber of Commerce, spearheaded by the Australian CoC, advocating that 'Singapore MUST NOT restrict ability of the foreign employers from hiring foreigners' when Australia is KNOWN around the world for implementing VERY STRICT 'hire Australian first' policy and practices! 3. As for those Employers, foreign or local, who are thinking about the profit factor and proclaimed to NOT care about whatever the nationality they hired as long as the person CAN deliver the results, that is good enough, they need to THINK HARDER and DEEPER. This is a COUNTRY and NOT a company. You can hire and fire employees, temp or permanent staffs, in a company BUT you CANNOT hire and fire the Citizens of a country! The host country's citizen! Of course, IF there is REALLY BAD Singaporean PMEs, the government will NEED to acknowledge that and find out WHERE HAVE our world class educational system GONE WRONG? How come our LOCAL TALENT are NOT good enough for the many PME jobs available by the Foreign and Local companies? In the meantime, the employers just have to BITE the bullets. It is a matter of 'short term pain for long term gain'. Of course, for those who INSIST that they will DIE from the short term pain, I have no answer for you. If you cannot endure the short term pain, perhaps your business if doom eventually anyway!