The Government will always be on the side of Singaporeans, says PM Lee amid job concerns

SINGAPORE: The Government will “always be on the side of Singaporeans”, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday , as he addressed concerns about job security in an economy battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But even as the Government makes such adjustments, it has to be careful not to give the impression that it no longer welcomes foreigners. While the perception of foreign competition has sharpened during a downturn, Mr Lee said the reality was that number of Employment Passes and S Passes “have come down” since the COVID-19 pandemic this year.

Given how the purpose of the Employment Pass scheme is to “top us up at the higher end of these PMET jobs”, there is a need to tighten the qualifying criteria for this set of work passes now, said Mr Lee. “There is no comfort in knowing that the total numbers are not too many if personally we feel that we have been discriminated against at the workplace, or that the EP holder working beside us somehow has an inside track because of old-school ties or some other personal connections," he continued.

“This has always been government policy. But we particularly want to emphasise these considerations now in these uncertain times to remind all employers to play their part in building up their Singaporean workforce, the Singaporean core." “The picture resurfaced recently and went viral which just shows that during tough times, this subject is more neurologic … Many people took offence, got worked up and berated DBS ... but it was fake news,” said Mr Lee, noting that the photo was actually taken in India where DBS opened a new office.

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