Restrictions on inflow of foreign workers likely to persist for some time: Tan See Leng

RESTRICTIONS on inflow of foreign workers from higher-risk countries are likely to persist for some time, as the authorities work towards managing the risk of Covid-19 community transmission in Singapore, Second Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng said in Parliament on Tuesday.

"This is as the size of the inflows coming in has to be reduced when the Covid-19 situation deteriorates in these source countries where they come from, and we can only increase these inflows when the situation in these home countries improves," Dr Tan told the House in response to MP questions.

"This is the only way we can ensure the safe inflow of the workers whilst managing and mitigating the risk of transmission in our community," he said.

Singapore relies heavily on migrant workers from South Asian countries including India, which is now facing its worst Covid-19 crisis since the pandemic began. On April 22, the Republic announced an entry ban on all non-residents who have been in India in the last two weeks.

Even prior to this, however, businesses in the construction, marine shipyard and process sectors have already been hard hit by the manpower crunch.

In 2020, the number of Work Permit holders in these sectors declined by nearly 60,000, or 16 per cent, Dr Tan revealed. Between November and April, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) granted entry approval to an average of 5,100 S Pass and Work Permit holders per month.

To help businesses tap workers from other sources, the government recently announced an increase in existing foreign worker levy rebates for Work Permit holders in the three sectors, from S$90 to S$250 per worker per month from May to December 2021.

Dr Tan said employers can make use of these rebates to bring in workers from alternative sources such as China, where the workers are generally higher-skilled but command higher wages.

"In the meantime, we encourage businesses to retain their existing migrant workers and tap on other workers that are already here in Singapore," said Dr Tan.

In response to a question from Non-Constituency MP Leong Mun Wai on whether the non-resident employment decline in 2020 of 181,500 was matched by a decline in total population of non-residents in the same period, Dr Tan said the answer is yes.

For workers whose work pass expires or is cancelled, they would be required to leave Singapore in two to four weeks, he noted.

However, if the work pass holder is able to find employment before repatriation, Dr Tan said there is no reason to "purposefully force" these workers to return to their home country.

This is because they would incur additional recruitment fees from overseas employment agents, undergo additional Covid-19 testing and would have to serve a 21-day stay home notice when they return to Singapore.

"Making the worker run around, do this unnecessary round trip would increase the risks of him returning with a Covid-19 infection," said Dr Tan.

At the same time, Dr Tan said the government is reviewing whether there's a need to extend the validity of in-principle approvals (IPA), which is one of the requirements for getting foreign workers to Singapore.

He was responding to a question from Leader of the Opposition and Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh, who asked how long the MOM is proposing to extend the IPA of Work Permit and S Pass holders in view of their repeated unsuccessful entry pass applications.

Dr Tan said the ministry is still carrying out automatic approvals and extensions as it has done before, but there has been a significant increase in the backlog of cases recently.

"As a result, even if you allow for an automatic extension of the approval process, it doesn't make sense because the extension is going to go months ahead without any certainty as to whether ultimately we can grant the entry approvals," Dr Tan said.

"That's where the challenge is today because we have no way of telling whether, how the pandemic, the control of the situation, the successive wave of infections of many of these source countries where we get our workers from can actually provide certainty of control of the outbreak of these infections," he said.

As for whether MOM would reimburse the IPA costs if the entry pass just does not come through, Dr Tan said this is something the ministry is considering as well.