Tight

I read something about the tightened foreign labour policy hurting local employers and threatening to stunt economic growth. That is to be expected; a tightening of labour is always poor news for employers. The key to a policymaker is how the new balance contributes to long-term objectives.

Of course, if you were a regular reader, you might have some inkling that here “expected” tends to carry the connotation of “no excuse for not preparing ahead.”

So, in a nutshell, the astute policymaker would like to reconcile two conflicting priorities: cool public ire over perceived loose labour immigration, and avoid hurting local SMEs/emtrepreneurs by depriving them of cheap, trained labour.

Of course, one way to go about it would be to simply tighten labour immigration on one hand, whilst setting up a department on the other to administer appeals by firms on a case-by-case basis for the hiring of foreigners. Presumably employers will have to show cause, that is to say, indicate that they’ve not been able to attract citizens to fill said positions at equal terms or better.

Two things caution me against recommending this approach. For one, it’s the first thing to come to mind, and typically enough to rather too blocky and unwieldy for my taste. For another, I seem to recall the SDP advocating this exact same policy during the GE, which pretty much by definition sums up why it’s probably a bad idea.

To put very simply and plainly, such an approach would be tremendously inefficient on two counts – budgetary and economically. It’s expensive, tedious and bureaucratic, as well as prone to lagging behind economic reality, not to mention the usual departmental inertia that can be expected to set in after ten years or so.

I’ve got an easier method to suggest. Cleave policy in two: one set of rules for Singaporean-owned SMEs, and another set for everyone else (including the GLCs). The latter should be set with the overall aim of maintaining national competitiveness in mind, and the former set of rules for local entrepreneurs based on how much coddling one thinks they’ll need. After all, releasing more Work Permits for them doesn’t cost the state anything. And so long as their HQ remains based here, so will their management and their key personnel and their tax revenue.

Piaroh-Cze:

Let us not lose sight of what is important.

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