Debated in Parliament on 3 Mar 2014.
The following questions stood in the name of Mr R Dhinakaran –
To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) whether Filipino and Sri Lankan construction workers are in addition to the supply of workers coming from regular source countries, such as China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh, or whether they will make up for the moderation of workers from these regular source countries; and (b) if the latter, which other countries will such workers come from and how much is the moderation.
To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower in light of better-skilled Filipino construction workers costing more, whether this signals a deliberate or permanent move by the Government to opt for quality over cost in its foreign manpower policy, particularly in the construction industry where the converse has been the norm.
Question No 3, Madam.
Mdm Speaker, last year, BCA appointed Singapore-based companies to set up Overseas Testing Centres (OTCs) in Sri Lanka and the Philippines to enhance resilience in the supply of skilled construction workers. This is an exploratory approach, as we look for more sources of construction workers to meet the continued need for skilled manpower to deliver the public infrastructure projects and to boost construction productivity.
We are, indeed, making a deliberate move to opt for quality over cost. We are achieving this in multiple ways, and not just in exploring more sources of construction workers. With the introduction of a Market-Based Skills Recognition framework for construction and further raising of the R2 "Basic Skilled" levy in July 2016, both announced in the Budget Statement, we are encouraging contractors to opt for more skilled and more experienced construction workers.
MOM and MND/BCA will also be consulting the industry to explore having a minimum percentage of R1 "Higher Skilled" workers for each construction firm. These higher-skilled R1 workers will naturally command a higher salary than R2 "Basic Skilled" workers. But moving towards having a smaller pool of higher skilled and higher paid workers is the right direction for Singapore, rather than towards having a larger pool of more low-skilled but cheaper
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workers.
Mr Dhinakaran, Question No 4.
Question No 4, Mdm Speaker.
My apologies, Mdm Speaker, in my prior answer, if I could have retrospectively requested your permission to combine the two questions, please.
Okay. The two questions were combined. Mr Dhinakaran.
Thank you, Madam. I thank the Acting Minister for the explanation. I wish to ask a supplementary question on whether the Ministry was going to moderate the recruitments in the other source countries which MOM had been concentrating on in the past, besides China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh. Are we going to slow down in these source countries?
Another question is: in this Budget, Deputy Prime Minister mentioned the other day that the maximum period of employment has been extended from 18 years to 22 years, or something like that. So, in that direction, we are already extending the employment period of the people who have got long experience in construction. Thus, is there a need to explore other source countries where high cost of labour is prevailing?
Mdm Speaker, we are not particularly reducing the supply of workers from some of these existing countries. What we are moving towards is to enhance the productivity of the workers, particularly in terms of experience, which is why there was an extension to the employment period from 18 years to 22 years. But in terms of the source countries, we are not moving in the direction that the Member has suggested.
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