Update on Employment Profile of Companies on Fair Consideration Framework Watchlist

Mr Leong Mun Wai asked the Minister for Manpower whether she can provide an update on the employment profile of all companies on the Fair Consideration Framework Watchlist in terms of (i) the ratio of Singaporeans to foreigners (ii) the ratio of Singaporeans to foreigners for employees drawing less than $5,000 in gross monthly salary (iii) the ratio of the largest group of foreigners to total employees (iv) the nationality of the companies’ human resource head and (v) the availability of succession plans.

Firms are placed on the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) Watchlist if they have a higher share of foreign Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) as compared to their industry peers, or a high concentration of a single foreign nationality source. This proportion varies by sector. For example, sectors that serve a more international market tend to have a higher share of foreign PMETs in their workforce. The FCF watchlist is also a dynamic one, and snapshots of the firms’ employee profiles are not generally used for comparisons.

While having a higher share of foreign PMETs does not necessarily mean that these firms have flouted any rules, placing them on the FCF Watchlist enables us to scrutinise all of their EP applications closely and to help them to improve their local hiring. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) engages firms on the FCF Watchlist to help them improve their Human Resource (HR) practices. In most instances, employers have been responsive. They have adjusted their hiring processes to reach out to more local candidates and put in place programmes, such as knowledge transfer and training plans, to develop their local talent pipeline.

This approach has served us well. Since 2016, firms on the FCF Watchlist have hired more than 4,800 Singaporean PMETs in total, and many of them make sufficient improvements in their workforce profile to exit the FCF Watchlist within a year. For the minority who are uncooperative, their work pass privileges are suspended.

Today, about 90% of the 48,000 HR professionals in Singapore are locals. In any case, hiring decisions are not made by HR heads alone. Senior management and line managers are also involved. The identification of companies to be put on the FCF Watchlist therefore depends on the actual employee profile, rather than assumed preferences of any particular group. More importantly, regardless of who makes the hiring decisions, all employers in Singapore must comply with not just the letter but the spirit of our laws and regulations on fair hiring, and adopt good HR practices.