The Lion City is in the news again. It continues its crackdown on the Slave Power. It also highlights is rational immigration policy that is not designed to impoverish its citizenry.
Japan Today September 25, 2013
Singapore To Tighten Rules On Hiring Of Foreigners
SINGAPORE —Singapore has announced tighter rules on the hiring of foreign professional workers, saying companies will from next year have to show proof they first tried to recruit local citizens.
The change, taking effect in August 2014, follows protests and online complaints about the large number of foreigners in the affluent city-state.
The Ministry of Manpower said companies that discriminate against citizens “will be subject to additional scrutiny” when they apply for employment passes for foreign professionals.
“Even as we remain open to foreign manpower to complement our local workforce, all firms must make an effort to consider Singaporeans fairly,” Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan Jin said in a statement.
“What we are doing is to put in place measures to nudge employers to give Singaporeans—especially our professionals, managers and executives—a fair chance at both job and development opportunities.”
About 37% of Singapore’s total workforce of 3.36 million in 2012 were non-resident.
Singapore will adopt some common sense practices, including requiring advertisement and employment offers to qualified Singaporeans.
The ministry said companies must first advertise for Singaporeans to fill job vacancies in a national jobs bank administered by the government’s workforce development agency.
Foreigners can be hired if no citizens are qualified.
Firms which have a “disproportionately low concentration” of Singaporean employees at professional level, and companies where foreign managers are accused of favoring their own compatriots in hiring, will also be put under tighter scrutiny, the ministry said.
Firms with 25 or fewer staff, or those recruiting for jobs paying Sg$12,000 ($9,580) and above a month, will be exempted from the advertising rule.
Authorities have been phasing in measures to tighten foreign worker inflows after facing criticism from Singaporeans, who accuse foreigners of competing with them for jobs, housing, schools and space on public transport.
The people of Singapore were also concerned that the government elite were electing a new people.
Singaporeans have also complained that the rapid influx in previous years is eroding their national identity.
The discontent spilled into general elections in 2011 when the ruling party garnered its lowest-ever vote count after more than 50 years in power.
Two rallies against the government’s immigration policy were held earlier this year garnering crowds of more than 3,000, making them the country’s biggest protests in decades.
Interestingly, no accusations of racism yet. Lots of those foreign professionals are whites from the UK, Australasia, Canada, and South Africa. Not to mention that Japanese corporations pefer to staff their overseas operations with temporary transfers from the Home Islands. Singaporeans also have a strange relationship with Overseas Chinese from Malaysia. Many employers are dependent on them for skilled labor and the minor professions, including the famous Singapore Girls (Singapore Airlines stewardesses)who for many years were predominately Malaysian Chinese.
Singapore does show that immigration reform can be done correctly. It can bring a rational policy to a nation that needs skilled and unskilled labor. Here Singapore uses rational policies and national interest in developing an immigration policy based on temporary employment, skills, and wages. Unlike the United States which brings in aliens as permanent residents regardless of income or skill. Time for the United States to adopt an immigration policy not based on family unification, but on income and skills in the workplace, but not at the expense of the American worker.
