Number of Essential Services Companies Allowed to Operate during COVID-19 Circuit Breaker Period

Mr Speaker, Sir, during the circuit breaker period starting 7 April 2020, around 21% of our total workforce continued operating on-site at approximately 80,000 entities. This excludes workers and companies that could continue operating from home via telecommuting arrangements.

Under the enhanced circuit break period starting 21 April 2020, 17% of our total workforce continued operating on-site at approximately 45,000 entities. Again, this excludes workers and companies that could continue operating from home.

I thank the Minister for the reply. As the number of community COVID-19 infections is reducing, what is the Government's plan to reopen the economy? If the Government do reopen the economy, which are the broad sectors, particularly the production and service sectors, will be first to be allowed to resume the services and production?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I had given this reply yesterday during my media interview. There are two parts to it.

First, the sectors that will progressively reopen as priority. So, first, let me put this in context. During the circuit breaker period measures and during the enhanced circuit breaker period measures, all our essential services continue to function. At the same time, all the productions that are part of the global supply chain, including petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and certain parts of manufacturing also continue to function. This is to ensure that, domestically, we are able to play our part to meet the essential needs of fellow Singaporeans. At the same time, this allows us to fulfil our responsibilities and obligations to the global supply chains. So, this set of measures are on-going.

As we progressively reopen our economy, we are also looking to reinforce our position to fulfil our responsibilities to the global supply chains, be it pharmaceuticals, biomedical, electronics or petrochemicals. We are also determined to make sure that our hub status as both a Financial Hub, Trade Hub, Aviation and Port Hub status continue to function, not just for the benefit of Singaporeans, but also for the global community. These are the sectors that we gave priority for the progressive reopening.

The second point as to how we progressively reopen, as I had mentioned yesterday, we need to start the preparations now, so that come next week, we can progressively reopen. There are a number of things that we need to do together to prepare our companies to expand their capacities as they reopen.

First, we need to put in place the contingency arrangements to have a safe working environment. This includes the safe distancing work arrangements within the respective companies. It includes safe rest areas and the safe cohorting of different sets of workers to allow for business continuity, and it certainly requires us to have a higher standard of hygiene and cleanliness within our work premises. These are measures that will last us a long time beyond the circuit breaker measures and these are good practices that we should put in place for sustainable operations, going forward.

This week, ESG and EDB will progressively work with our companies and trade associations to put in place the respective measures, so that we can open up and restart up some of the production capacities that have not been done in the last two weeks. That is how we intend to do so.

At the same time, we must also embrace technology to see how we can use technology to help people who need to interact with one another, to come in contact with one another, to track and trace them, should there be an incident.

As I mentioned yesterday, this will be a long fight. We are far from over in this battle with COVID-19. We will need to put in place measures for safe operations. At the same time, if there is a flare-up in any particular one sector or one company, we must be able to quickly put in place measures to isolate that group of workers from the rest, so that the rest of the economy can continue to function.

There will be another set of companies and operations that will need to rethink their business model for longer term sustainability. For example, those companies that are involved in social entertainment, as well as those companies that require high level of interactions between the workers and the customers or amongst the customers, will also need to rethink their business model in order for us to restart those operations safely. This is how we intend to do it in a systematic and progressive manner to reopen the economy, so that more of our people can get back to work.

Having said that, the work from home measures will continue for many people who can continue to do their work from home. We have been able to do this for the vast majority of our economy and those measures are likely to continue in the short to medium term.

Thank you, Speaker. I have a supplementary question for the Minister for Trade and Industry. We have received feedback from some residents who operate businesses in essential services that under the tightened circuit breaker, they were asked to suspend their operations, whereas they know of others in the same industry who were not asked to do so. So, could the Minister share how MTI actually comes up with these guidelines or restrictions for companies? And why is it that there appears to be companies in the same industry that do not get the same instructions from MTI, in essential services?

Mr Speaker, Sir, the aim of the measures under the circuit breaker period and the enhanced circuit breaker measures have to do with trying to reduce the amount of social interactions and reduce the load, for example, in the transport sector. So, we try to reduce the numbers to the minimum possible, while maintaining the level of essential services required by our local community.

For essential firms, we will first want to make sure that they have a minimum level of operations that can continue to do so. So, even for essential firms, it does not mean that all essential firms get 100% of all the workers that they need. The essential firms will pare down to what they really need to continue their operations in a safe and efficient manner.

I believe Ms Lim may refer to some examples like some of the food establishments that are considered essential and, progressively, we have asked some to wind down. One of the reasons for us to do this is that as demand falls, we hope to be able to aggregate the services provided by various companies. So, all else being equal, for those companies that provide a series of services in an aggregated manner with a minimum number of staff required, we will be able to prioritise them and help them to continue their operations. But on the other hand, companies that have standalone operations and require perhaps a disproportionate amount of staff, we will advise them to restructure their operations to pare down their numbers or, if not, to temporarily suspend their operations for the moment.

Having said that, of course, this is an on-going process. We work with all the essential firms and companies to size up the demand for their workforce. And depending on the period of the circuit breaker at different points in time, they will require different set of workers for both operations and for safe maintenance.