Budget 2022: Tighter foreign worker quotas not enough to push construction sector to innovate

WHILE construction firms generally agree that there is a need for the industry to innovate to rely less on foreign workers, they said introducing stricter foreign worker quotas will not be enough to transform the industry overnight.

Instead, in the short term, they foresee that the latest policy changes for work permit holders will only drum up construction costs and cause projects to delay even further than they already have due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As part of a slew of foreign manpower policy changes announced during the Budget, the government will be reducing the dependency ratio ceiling (DRC) and replacing the man-year entitlement framework with a new levy framework.