Singapore appealed for firms to hire more locals as a pandemic-driven fall in foreign workers, together with an easing of virus curbs, continues to drive the city-state’s worst labour shortage in over two decades.
Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said in parliament Monday that while certain sectors such as construction has seen a recovery in employees from abroad to over 90% of pre-Covid numbers as virus curbs eased, other firms facing manpower shortages should tap on available sources of local workers to build up their manpower core.
“We expect labour market tightness to ease in the coming months as non-resident employment rebounds following significant relaxation of border restrictions,” Tan said. Still, “given the uncertainties in the global geo-political and economic environment,” he said, “over-reliance on foreign workers will leave businesses vulnerable to disruptions.”
He added that firms could hire around 5,200 workers working in short-term pandemic-related roles like enforcing social distancing and administering vaccines as their contracts end over the coming months.
The Southeast Asian nation has in recent months tightened rules on bringing in foreign workers which it relies on heavily across most sectors, even as economists from Morgan Stanley and Maybank Investment Banking Group warned that labour tightness may further drive inflation, which accelerated to a decade-high in March.
The government may have to “review its stricter foreign labour policies,” to counter cost pressures, Maybank economists Chua Hak Bin and Lee Ju Ye wrote in a research note last month.
Tan said that there continues to be many vacancies for “outward-oriented industries” such as Information & Communications and Financial Services.
