The Reason Why Companies on Watchlist for Discriminatory Hiring Practices Aren’t Publicly Named

If you love political dramas, you might have watched Borgen from Netflix, a Danish political drama television series about the first female Prime Minister in Denmark.

In one of the plots, the Government wanted to pass a bill that’ll ensure that all companies’ board of directors to have at least 45% female directors.

That triggered a man who owns a lot of companies in the country. He threatened to move all his companies out of Denmark if the Government pressed on with the bill. His company contributed to about 11% of the country’s economy, and if he had really shifted his companies aboard, it would have serious repercussions: hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, other companies might follow suit and it would cripple the country’s economy.

Therefore, every decision made by the Government must usually be thought out thoroughly, if not we might suffer in the near future.

That might’ve just been a drama, but that’s somehow related to this topic.

The Key Reason Why Companies on Watchlist for Likely Discrimination Are Not Publicly Named

The Ministry of Manpower has a watchlist of employers with possibly discriminatory hiring practices. Any employers in the watchlist, called the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) watchlist, would be subject to closer scrutiny by MOM, whereby the ministry would scrutinise Employment Pass (and S Pass soon) applications from employers on the FCF Watchlist.

In other words, employers must be fair in their hiring practices lah.

Previously, NTUC Deputy Head and MP for Pioneer SMC has called for the list to be public, and in the recent parliament sitting, this topic was discussed again.

So, why not just “shame” the companies and use that as a deterrence for other companies?

Mrs Josephine Teo, the Manpower Minister and also a very emotional woman who cried in parliament, explained why.

For a start, many of the companies who got into the list exited it within a year, though they’d still be watched and would be put back in the list if they revert to their old hiring practice.

And there have been penalties: of the 1,200 firms in the list since 2016, less than 10% of them were uncooperative and have had their work pass privileges suspended, so they couldn’t hire any foreigners at all. And they’re still in the list.

MOM is also stepping up enforcement to ensure that there’s no unfair hiring.

As for the reason for not naming them publicly?

The goal is to get those companies to do better and be fairer, and not to “not to frustrate them till they leave Singapore or close down.”

Remember the consequences of companies moving aboard? Yes, it’s to avoid that.

Because if a company closes down or moves to another country, the locals in that company would lose their jobs, too.

Mrs Teo said, “The actions that we take must be proportional and it must also not create so much difficulties for the existing PMETs in their workforce who are local and would very much like to keep their jobs.”

So, basically, it’s like letting ex-convicts bounce back to society instead of using the ex-convict to deter others from committing crime.

Those companies were usually “exposed” after looking through their workforce composition and how they have responded to applicants for jobs posted on the MyCareersFuture.sg portal.

She added, “So we have to take a balanced approach and ask ourselves, what is the combination of actions that will be most helpful to the businesses, which, in turn, will be more helpful in expanding opportunities for our own people.”

New Firms in the List Are Mainly from the Financial Services and Professional Services Sectors

Last month, it was revealed that an additional 47 firms were placed in the list. Before that, there were 1,200 companies in the list.

The 47 employers comprise a mix of large and smaller firms – with the largest employing close to 2,000 PMETs. These employers hire some 2,000 EP holders, and more than 2,800 local PMETs collectively.

While these firms were supporting local PMET employment, their workforce profiles raise concerns, when compared to industry peers.

One of the ways MOM identifies employers with indications of discriminatory hiring practices is by looking at hiring practices that differ significantly from industry peers (e.g. employers with exceptionally high share of foreign PMETs, or very high concentration of a single nationality). These are indicators of possible discriminatory hiring practices.

30 of the employers are in the Financial Services and Professional Services sectors, while 17 of them are in a variety of sectors, such as Administrative and Support Services, Manufacturing and Education.

All the 30 employers from the Financial Services and Professional Services sectors have high concentration of PMETs from single nationalities—and of course it’s not from Singapore lah.

For example, in one wealth management firm, almost three-quarters of their PMETs are from the same nationality. In another example of a bank, almost two-thirds of the PMETs are of the same nationality.

And lest you’ve forgotten, the Financial Services sector has since been singled out to have a higher minimum salary requirement for its Employment Pass holders come 1 December 2020; other sectors’ minimum salary is at $4,500 while the Financial Services sector would need a minimum of $5,000.

Reader Bao: After reading so much stuff, can you tell us what happened to the fictional Denmark? You cannot just leave us at a cliffhanger.

Let’s just say that if you want to win, you need to know how to play Poker well.