Sunday 9 March 2014

Essay Draft 2

    Globalization in the present day has seen an influx of foreign immigrants in our land. The import of foreign labour and talent demonstrate the inflow of foreigners having a stake in our country. While the nation thrives as an economic giant, it is apparent that the heavy presence of foreign immigrants has also been a source of tension for the locals here. As a result, there has been an ongoing debate over Singapore’s open door policy to foreign immigrants (workers and talents) and whether such policies have created more harm than good for the nation. The government has implemented several schemes in recent years to handle this prevalent issue as it seeks to create that balance between boosting Singapore’s economic progress, and at the same time appeasing locals’ distress and anxiety towards their presence. 

Singaporeans have grumbled and protested against the mass numbers of foreign immigrants and many are upset with how they seem to have “invaded” the place Singaporeans call home. An investigation into the reasons why attributes the country’s overcrowding and failing reliability of its public transportation system, increasing property prices for housing, suppressed wage level, increased competition for jobs and education, increasing income inequality as social problems to name a few, to the government’s open-door immigration policy (. Yet, Singapore maintains its need for foreign immigrant as quoted by former minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew, that “Foreign talent is vital to the growth of Singapore’s society and in ensuring its economic progress”. However, perhaps the question asked by many in this case would be, at what extent and at what cost?

As a country without natural resources, Singapore relies largely on talent drawing them from across the globe, South Asia, Northeast Asia, China, India and beyond that to ensure its success and growth rate. Contrary to popular belief that these foreigners have “snatched” jobs from the locals, it appears that that may not be true. Founding father Lee Kuan Yew further supported on how Singapore’s openness to foreigners have on the other hand, created more jobs here. Yet, Singaporeans are still displeased that the hiring rate of foreigners prevails as compared to the hiring of local people for jobs.

 A recent scheme, the new Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), requiring companies advertising government job vacancies to target only locals for 14 days before hiring foreigners, seeks to address the issue. This framework dictates that all advertisements made by firms must  be open to Singaporeans, comply with the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, and run for at least 14 calendar days. With effect from 1st August 2014, firms will have to show that they were unable to hire suitable Singapore candidates for any job vacancies before submitting new Employment Pass (EP) applications. 

With this framework put into place, it allows for the reduction of discriminatory HR practices such as preference employment towards the hiring of foreigners. At the same time, it ensures Singaporeans the fair consideration they are rightly entitled to for job opportunities. Additonally, this framework seeks to put into additional scrutiny on firms that can improve on their hiring and career development practices. Firms with a disproportionately low concentration of Singaporeans at the Professional, Managerial and Executive (PME) level will be asked to provide information such as organisation charts with nationality information, recruitment processes, and plans to develop local internship staff to take on higher roles or reduce reliance on EP holders, to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). 

However, while this framework seeks to ensure fair consideration for locals in job opportunities, Singaporeans are also being considered based only on merit. As such, there have been calls for the FCF be expanded to include more categories of Singaporeans. What appears to be fair on the surface, is met with critical reception by the National Solidairty Party (NSP) (The Straits Times, 2013) who claims that the FCP applies only to top tier work passes for foreign professionals and Singaporean degree holders. Ngerng (2013) argues that the approximate 70% of Singaporeans (according to MOM's Singapore Work Force 2012 Report) who are not degree holders, would not be applicable for this framework. 

References:

Ngerng, R. (2013). Why did the fair consideration framework only cover degree holders?. Retrieved on 8th of March, 2014, from 
http://thehearttruths.com/2013/09/26/why-did-the-fair-consideration-framework-only-cover-degree-holders/

The Straits Times. (2013). NSP calls for fair consideration jobs framework to be extended beyond EP holders. Retrieved on 8th March, 2014, fom
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/nsp-calls-fair-consideration-jobs-framework-be-extended-beyond-ep-hold

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