A Sustainable Population for A Dynamic Singapore

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, like many Singaporeans, when I first saw the headline about the White Paper that we were going to have a

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population target of 6.9 million, I had a very heavy heart. As it is, most of the residents who stay in my area are feeling the constraints of a crowded city. The trains are crowded. There is a shortage of housing and, for some of the older citizens, they were also saying that even getting places in hospitals are difficult. It was certainly with a heavy heart that I read the headlines.

Now, when I actually read the White Paper itself and followed by the subsequent clarifications by Ministers, I had a little bit more reassurance. It is pretty clear that the number of 6.9 million is really a number for planning purposes which actually means that the bigger the number, the more infrastructure we will have, the more houses we will have, the more transport we will have. In that sense, the bigger the number you plan for, the more room you will have and the more ease you will have. If we do not hit that number, for example, that means there will be more space on trains, more space on buses and so on. In that sense, with regard to my initial knee-jerk reaction – that we are going to have too many people and our island cannot deal with it – I am a little bit reassured. Of course, the real proof of the pudding will be if these effects are actually felt by Singaporeans over the next couple of years. So, hopefully this is something that will play out.

Now there are two particular things I want to deal with in my speech. The first is how we can make sure that even as we expand infrastructure capacity and a large number of foreigners come into Singapore, we can continue to preserve opportunities and employment for Singaporeans. The second question I will deal with is immigration and whether we need it, because that seems to be the fundamental difference between what the White Paper proposes and what the Workers' Party is putting forward. And I think both of these are very important issues.

Let me deal with the first point in terms of opportunities. By and large, as Singaporeans age, there will be the risk of a diminishing workforce. But even in that, there will be industries that have opportunities, there will be industries that can grow around helping the old. One area, in particular, for example, is medicine. There will definitely be a need for doctors. I am also hoping that as we expand the opportunities, we also try to preserve more of these opportunities for Singaporeans, specifically. I know many young doctors, for example, one who studied with me in the university who could not get a place in medicine at NUS. His parents were able to afford an education abroad, he was one of the top in Cambridge but he could not get a place in NUS. There were many others who may not have had a chance to study medicine in Singapore, even though they may have had very good grades. What I am hoping is that as we expand the economy, we still do look out for opportunities

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that Singaporeans will want and expand places there because I know that there are some jobs Singaporeans may not want, but medicine is not one of them.

Let me go a bit broader on opportunities. The second point is this. I also think there is scope for us to make sure that opportunities come to Singaporeans first. This is actually not inconsistent with the White Paper but it may help us achieve the tighter targets because it will give us measures by which we can reduce the number of foreigners in such a way that it tilts the playing field in favour of Singaporeans. The second suggestion is actually something that comes out of what the EU does, which is, if you want to offer a job to a foreigner, you first have to advertise for it within the whole of the EU. And only if you do not get any applicants, can you then make a case to get a foreigner in. This could be an additional level, an additional barrier we put to companies that wish to employ foreigners. I think this would be particularly important for young professionals, engineers, accountants – and, perhaps, in this area, I should declare my interest, I am a professional working in a foreign law firm.

By ensuring that the opportunities that come out of growth are channelled to Singaporeans first, I think we will make sure that Singaporeans will be able to benefit from this growth. This will be particularly important to young families, to people who are coming out into the workforce, undergraduates. I do not think criteria for employment passes should be based on salary alone because that would still create competition at all levels. Our PMETs are also feeling the strain. They are saying we may earn $4,000 or $8,000, but we are not rich. We should also make sure that we protect the PMETs as well, the young working professionals.

The third thing that I think will be helpful is to provide greater employment security. Now, Singapore's employment laws are very, very flexible. "Very flexible", meaning it is very easy for people to fire employees. The good news is that because there are a lot of jobs available, it is easy for Singaporeans to find new jobs. One specific measure that would help, if we give greater employment protection to employees, there are at least three suggestions that I can make on this front. The first is to include a statutory protection period for employees who work for a long period of time. For example, our current Employment Act only protects employees who earn less than $2,000 in general, or $4,500 if they are workmen. So, this means that a lot of the Singaporean workforce do not get the very detailed protection from the Employment Act.

The second, the main protection of the Employment Act, is that it provides minimum periods of notice that have to be provided before you terminate an

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employee. If you work for less than 26 weeks, you have to provide one day's notice. If an employee has worked for 26 weeks to two years, you have to provide one week's notice and this scales up all the way to employees who have worked for five years, where you have to provide four weeks of notice. What that means is that even for long-serving employees, there is no real advantage to staying a long time because the most you get is one month of notice. On the other hand, if you look at the UK, for example, they have increasing notice period based on the duration of employment. It basically starts at one week of notice if you have two years or less of employment, and it increases by a week for every year of service up to 12 years. So, if you are an employee who has worked for 12 years, that means you get at least three months' notice before you can be terminated. The main benefit of this is that employees will have some certainty. They do not have to worry, "If I lose my job, what is going to happen? How will I survive for the next month? How will I make my payments?" This would at least give them a runway of three months or so if they have worked for a long time, and also incentivises employees to stay with the employer longer.

Another aspect is creating statutory protection for unfair dismissal. Now, at the moment, this is not a major form of redress for employees who earn more than the Employment Act salaries because the maximum they can recover in compensation for losing their job is, say, a month of notice period. Most employees do not take action if they have lost their job unfairly but you hear a lot of stories about people saying, "I lost my job because I did National Service". Now they do not go for hearing because it does not make economic sense to. But if you have statutory protection for unfair dismissal, then there is a low-cost means by which employees can seek redress for these kinds of unfair dismissals. I guess the point of this is to make sure that Singaporeans do not get unfairly discriminated against. Now, these are the sort of measures that our changes to manpower policy will help to tilt the playing field in favour of Singaporeans and give them greater protection, even as our economy expands and even as we are getting more foreigners. The key point is, getting in more foreigners can create more opportunities but we want to make sure these opportunities stay with Singaporeans as far as possible.

Now, let me deal with the second point on whether or not immigration is necessary because I think this is the crux of the difference between both sides of the House. The choice we face is very stark. We have heard from both Mr Teo Siong Seng and Mr Inderjit Singh about the pain that SMEs are going through. SMEs are not just old-fashioned companies who need time to change and can change miraculously. SMEs also include new businesses. I have a friend from Primary school who was working in the UK for a very long time. He came back

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to Singapore heeding the Government's call for entrepreneurs. But he said he had a very, very hard time setting up a business here. In particular, he wanted to start a business providing travel services to Central Asia, Russia and Kazakhstan. He had an intern who could speak Kazak, German and Russian – a foreigner. And he said there is no way he could get someone with that set of skills in Singapore. It was almost impossible for him to get a work permit of any sort, even under the current scheme. In the end, my friend appealed through two Members of Parliament – not me; two other Members – and the appeal completely failed, and he said "Your PAP Government is completely messing up. You encourage entrepreneurs to come here but at the same time you do not let us get the workers we need." And his was a new business. In the end, he managed to get a pass after paying $4,000 or more in salary, which he is not happy about because that is a huge strain on his cost.

That is what you get under the current system, with already tightened immigration policies. If you follow a zero new immigration policy – no new passes – then that is it. End of story. He would not even have been able to start.

We have to be very careful in saying no immigration altogether. If we say tighten immigration, then at least we have some room for flexibility. People that may create jobs, that may have innovative businesses, can have the opportunity to do that.

That is just a micro example. If you take bigger examples, such as high precision engineering, German companies that might come in and bring in high quality jobs, they may need some foreigners in the early years, but hopefully they can phase that out eventually, and get more Singaporeans in.

These are all opportunities you have only if you allow some new immigration. If you say no new immigration at all, then all of these will die.

Let us go a bit further because immigration is important not only for existing SMEs, and so on, but also for a lot of the expansion plans the Government is currently undertaking. For example, if we are building new HDB flats and building new MRTs, we need construction workers. Are you going to get a sufficient workforce of construction workers without foreign workers to build all these capacity in the next few years?

One of the things about immigration is this. You have to make decisions on whether or not you allow foreigners to come in on a day-to-day basis. You do not have the benefit of hindsight to say at the end of the year, "I did not hit my

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1% growth in workforce, therefore, I will let immigrants in". You need to make the decision right now. You do not know whether you will get the 1% or not at the time you make the decision. You have to make the decision on projections.

The reality is that you do not have hindsight when you make the decision. If you shut off the tap now, assuming you will get to the 1% growth, you will paralyse the new building, you will prevent new businesses that require the special skills to start and you will kill all the SMEs. This is why I think a tightening is probably the best way forward. I agree with the broad principle we should move the jobs to Singaporeans. I also think we should assist SMEs, and I think SPRING has a lot of schemes, and I hope those schemes can be introduced to SMEs more. I am sure Mr Inderjit Singh would have more details on how that can help and what else needs to be done. But I think the Government should assist with the transition process, but it is not something you can do overnight. It is a long process.

In conclusion, this Population Paper is one that I support. It is the one that I support because, ultimately, the first thing that we will see is a broader expansion of infrastructure which I think is something everyone wants. The second we would see is a tightening of foreign labour and foreign people coming in. I think we can do more things on the manpower side to make sure these opportunities favour Singaporeans. And the third, I think, is the immediate idea of shutting the tap to new foreign labour is something that will pretty much destroy our economy if we do it right now. In that sense, at least gradually tightening it gives businesses a runway and a chance to adapt.

First of all, let me just address the point whether or not we are shutting off the tap to foreigners. The point is that even if we look at public works alone, there is a lot more work that needs to be done for which you need more foreigners. Let us take a smaller example. I asked about the Aljunied Town Council just because I wanted to know whether or not you were actually following your own prescription of paying high wages and therefore you do not need foreigners. The reality is that you are not. But if you were to get more blocks of flats, you will need to expand the Town Council cleaning force. If you had zero additional foreigners, then you have to find some way of getting Singaporeans to fill that. Do you want, say, the spouses, the old folks, and so on, to do the Town Council cleaning works? Some might want to do it. But is that something you want as a matter of policy or do you want to allow more foreigners to deal with the expanded capacity?

The reality is even if you just want to meet your current objectives, you need to grow the workforce and, for a lot of jobs like construction and cleaning, and so on, you may want foreigners to do it. I think there is some scope for raising the wages and getting more Singaporeans to do it, which is what we are doing, but it is a combination of measures. You cannot solve it completely with just one measure.

Sir, the Member is actually proposing a growth model that depends on foreign labour inputs and not on productivity. It is productivity that will help the companies to be able to do more with less. That means, instead of adding a foreign worker or a worker, you automate or use technology in order to be able to do more and be more productive with less labour inputs.