To keep the recovery going, let’s step on the gas for hiring flexibility

WHEN I had lunch in a restaurant in Little India earlier this month, there was 1 waiter attending to 10 tables, a single cashier attending to customers and food delivery riders, and 4 cooks bustling in the kitchen.

A conversation with the cashier revealed that the waiting staff had to be moved into the kitchen due to a lack of cooks – in part because some cooks had left Singapore, but also because it is difficult to fill those roles with foreign hires, let alone locals.

This could be alleviated by upcoming tweaks to foreign labour policy, but the problem is that firms still have a long while to wait.