STORY
Qualifying salary for employment pass to go up
SINGAPORE - In a move to allay job concerns among white-collar Singaporeans and boost their employment prospects, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced changes to qualifying salary for employment passes in his annual National Day Rally.
The qualifying salary levels for foreigners holding Employment Passes (EP) will be raised while educational qualifications for applicants will be made more stringent, said the Prime Minister on Sunday night.
Foreign professionals will soon face stiffer criteria to qualify for an employment pass, the Ministry of Manpower will give more details on the new measures at a later date.
Singapore has been tightening up on foreign workers progressively through foreign workers' levy, and dependency ratios. "We will protect Singaporean workers, especially at lower end," Mr Lee said.
However he added, "We must be mindful especially of local SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), who often need foreign workers most. We will do our utmost to help SMEs adjust, including grants and tax deductions to help them upgrade productivity."
PM Lee also cautioned that the tightening on foreign workers does not mean Singaporeans will automatically get better jobs or higher pay, as Singaporeans are competing with workers all over the world.
In comparison, he said that China was producing 7 million graduates a year (double our citizen population) - 1.5 million in engineering and science alone.
And these fresh grads are competing furiously with one another in China. The impact will be felt worldwide over next 20 years.
Mr Lee said the only way for Singapore to meet the challenge is to rise above this tidal wave of hungry, skilled labour, and to develop expertise and know how to do work that they have not yet learnt to perform.
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