Debated in Parliament on 23 Sep 2025.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will implement new guidelines (i) mandating that employers provide clarity in job postings on employment platforms including salary ranges, job descriptions and expected recruitment timelines and (ii) requiring employers to furnish unsuccessful interviewees with a reason for their rejection so that they can use it as developmental feedback to enhance their future employability.
Clear job postings can be mutually beneficial for employers and job seekers by reducing search costs for both sides. As a baseline, the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices stipulate that selection criteria should be stated clearly in job advertisements. The Ministry of Manpower encourages employers to provide as much details as they can in job postings to facilitate the selection process.
At the same time, some employers may wish to keep job postings broader for competitive and internal confidentiality reasons. Mandating that employers must lock in and provide these details upfront can have the unintended effect of limiting the pool of applicants and turning away jobseekers whom employers would have been prepared to negotiate with and make adjustments for. This would run counter to the Government's efforts to encourage employers to move away from a "plug and play" approach and towards a "plug, train and play" approach, to consider a wider group of applicants who may have less experience and qualifications but have aptitude and willingness to learn.
The Member's suggestion to require employers to furnish unsuccessful interviewees with a reason for their rejection would be very onerous for employers, as hiring decisions are often based on a host of considerations involving multiple decision-makers, and including confidential matters, such as the relative performance of other candidates. Smaller employers may have more limited human resource capabilities and find it challenging to provide individual responses to every applicant, while larger employers typically receive substantial numbers of job applications. Mandating that all employers must provide reasons for rejection to each applicant would thus create significant operational burdens and compliance costs for both small and larger employers.
Nevertheless, we encourage employers and job applicants to provide constructive feedback to each other, where practical. The Workplace Fairness Act, when brought into force, will also safeguard merit-based hiring and provide jobseekers with recourse if they have been subjected to discrimination during the selection process.
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