Debated in Parliament on 1 Nov 2021.
Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what are the considerations for allotting foreign manpower quotas to companies which share with other companies, CPF contributions to a local staff; and (b) whether there has been an increase in workers part-timing with more than three employers.
A firm’s foreign worker quota determines the number of Work Permit (WP) and S Pass holders it can hire. The quota is computed based on the number of locals, meaning Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents, that it hires.
To ensure that employers do not hire locals on token salaries just to increase its foreign worker quota, locals have to be paid at least the Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) of $1,400 per month to count toward the firm’s foreign worker quota. As an allowance for firms hiring part-time workers, local employees who earn at least half of the LQS ($700 to below $1,400) will be considered as half a local employee for the foreign worker quota.
We recognise that some locals may work in more than one job across different companies. To avoid disincentivising employers from hiring these workers, we allow a local worker to count towards the foreign worker quota for up to two firms. These workers will count as one local employee if they are paid at least LQS by the firm, or half a local employee if paid at least half of the LQS. We cap the number of firms at two, as there is a natural limit to the number of full-time jobs a local can work in a month.
However, we will not allow an employer to split the salary of its employee across its different business entities, in order to get foreign worker quota for each business entity. This is an abuse of the rules and employers will be investigated for breach of the work pass regulations.
It is not common for locals to work in three or more jobs. The number of locals working in three or more jobs, has remained very low from 2016-20201, at around 0.2% of our resident employees.
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