SINGAPORE, June 8 — One of the toughest balancing acts that successive Singapore’s leaders have had to manage over the decades is to bring in foreign talent to the...
Way back in the 1980s, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew had already spoken of the need to bring in skilled foreigners to spur Singapore an workers, and of the importance of expanding the talent pool given Singapore ’s small population. ― TODAY picSINGAPORE, June 8 — One of the toughest balancing acts that successive Singapore ’s leaders have had to manage over the decades is to bring in foreign talent to the city-state while mitigating the inevitable tensions that come with it.
Political analyst from the Singapore Management University Eugene Tan said: “The harsh reality about immigration is that once the immigration genie is out of the bottle, it will not be easy to put the genie back in the bottle.” In fact, efforts to tighten inflow of foreign manpower using levers like raising levies and tweaking local-foreign worker ratios for certain industries are constantly met by vocal concerns from businesses here.
Song Seng Wun, an economic advisor at financial service provider CGS International, said that it is also worth noting that any cut in foreign talent would cause a “multiplier” effect too, as each worker is not only a producer in their own industry, but also a consumer. Numerous measures have been introduced or reinforced since then to address the dissatisfaction among locals.
Seeing foreigners able to better afford coveted things like cars and private homes, for example, would thus fuel a perception of inequality. SMU's Associate Professor Tan said that it is not easy for the Government to send a starker message that Singapore can't survive without foreign workers — a message Lee Kuan Yew had conveyed in the 1980s right through to the early 2000s.
While communicating that Singaporeans are being prioritised is important, some experts opined that doubling down on it may have its downsides, such as sending a mixed message to would-be investors.
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