According to Minister Tan, the proposal to offer additional foreign worker quotas to businesses in order to hire workers during non-peak night hours effectively loosens the Dependency Ratio Ceilings (DRCs).
Dr. Tan See Leng, Singapore’s Minister of Manpower, has spoken about whether the Ministry (of Manpower) will take into account increasing the number of work passes for certain job categories, such as production line operators, that can be carried out during non-peak night hours.
According to Minister Tan, the proposal to allow businesses to hire more foreign workers for non-peak night hours is essentially a relaxation of the Dependency Ratio Ceilings (DRCs), which refer to the maximum permitted ratio of foreign workers to the total workforce that a business in the designated sector is allowed to hire.
The DRCs were put in place to control the growth of Singapore’s foreign labour and make sure that companies don’t rely too heavily on them, which might leave them open to numerous disruptions.
The introduction of concessions for this group of workers would necessitate their daily departure for their places of residence, such as Johor Bahru or Batam, in order to relieve the load on Singapore’s infrastructure. Therefore, Minister Tan claims that it would be “impractical and resource intensive” to enforce such a provision.
“However, we recognise that some businesses may need temporary additional foreign labour for factors like business expansion.”
Minister Tan advises such enterprises to take advantage of already-in-place programmes like the Manpower for Strategic Economic Priorities (M-SEP) scheme, which offers businesses that support Singapore’s strategic economic priorities temporary flexibility. Businesses can hire S Pass and Work Permit Holders over the current DRC for a period of two years provided they participate in specific initiatives or activities related to investments, innovation, or internationalisation and agree to hiring or training locals.
