Minster Chan CS Spoke About Work Pass New Salary, Said It ‘Creates More Space for S’poreans to Compete’

Don’t worry; this isn’t a leaked audio, so whatever is said should’ve been vetted and thought through thoroughly.

Lest you’re not aware, the talk of the town in the last few days has been the increase in the salary requirements for S Pass and E Pass—the minimum salary for S Pass holders will be increased from $2,400 to $2,500, while the minimum salary for E Pass holders will be increased from $3,900 to $4,500.

Those in the financial services sector would have to pay a minimum of $5,000 for E Pass holder later this year.

These changes are to encourage firms to engage more Singaporeans / Singapore PRs since everyone who’s holding a pink or blue IC is now worried about their jobs—if they still have one, that is.

Everything pertaining to this topic is being summarized and simplified here.

But those changes are made by the Ministry of Manpower—a ministry in charge of, well, manpower.

How about the response by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, a ministry in charge of businesses? After all, the changes are going to affect businesses. Pretty sure they’ve something to say?

Since we all know the marketing team is never on good terms with the finance team, since one team’s KPI depends on more money spent while the other’s KPI depends on less money spent.

Well, Minister Chan Chun Sing, the Trade and Industry Minister, has spoken.

Fairness, Diversity, and Localisation

For a start, here’s what he has to say when asked whether the increase in the salary requirement would give businesses a reason to raise the pay of foreign talents:

“I don’t see this as a minimum salary. When we raise the headroom (for pay), it actually creates more space for Singaporeans to compete…Even as firms move towards less reliance on the lower end of the EP holders, they still need time to make adjustments.”

Why?

If it’s too chim, just think of it this way: Singaporeans are competing with foreign talents for jobs. For a similar position, if a Singaporean can do it for $4,400 while a foreign talent can do it for the same price, a firm has no other choice but to engage the Singaporean because the minimum salary for an E Pass is $4,500.

Reader Bao: Wait, so there’s no argument between two ministries?

You first day in Singapore ah?

As the minister in charge of local businesses and also foreign businesses that’s set up shop here, Mr Chan also sums up the Government’s stand on foreign manpower in three areas: fairness, diversity and localization.

For fairness, there shouldn’t be any unfair hiring practices, and if a company has a history of discriminatory hiring practices, they’d be put on the Fair Consideration Framework watch list. Simply put, employers must be fair while hiring lah.

For diversity, companies that really need foreign talents shouldn’t only recruit from one country. Adding on this point, he said, “If we want to serve international markets, then it is only logical that businesses have diverse international teams.”

In other words, if you want to serve the whole of Singapore, cannot be just engage people from Yishun, right?

And thirdly, Ah Gong is trying to grow local talents, and with local talents, we can compete with foreign talents. Of course, for this to happen, companies must have a system to groom locals instead of going for the easy solution of looking for talents elsewhere.

Basically, instead of buying cooked food from NTUC FairPrice (i.e. getting foreign talents), companies should learn how to cook well from the ingredients they have at home (i.e. grooming local talents).

Reader Bao: But I’m already a talent and I fear losing my job for foreigners

Erm, Minister Chan might not have said this but maybe here’s something you should do: upskill and don’t judge your own performance. Let results be your judge.

Reader Bao: But I got serve NS one leh, why must I still compete?

Then you’ve won the argument.