SINGAPORE – Stringent Measures for Highly-Skilled Workers’ Applications
According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), employers hiring highly-skilled foreign workers will be subject to stricter rulings in order to maximize work opportunities for Singaporean citizens. These changes bring new salary publication requirements and stricter examination of applications for highly-skilled foreign workers employed under the Employment Pass (EP) and S Pass categories.
The forthcoming policy changes will require employers to publish job vacancies & their relative salary ranges in the Job Bank. Employers with a significantly greater ratio of foreign workers as opposed to local workers, must provide additional information about their proactive efforts to recruit local workers.
Beginning on October 1st, 2015, the salary range of each job vacancy in the Job Bank must be published by employers and made visible to job searchers. At this time, employers are permitted to make this information only visible to the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the Job Bank administrator, hiding it from potential job searchers. Applications submitted where the job salary range was not stated in the Job Bank, will be rejected.
The MOM announced that it will also be more careful when evaluating EP and S Pass applications in order to better examine the relevant experience of those applying for professional occupations. Applicants with weak qualifications will be scrutinized more closely and any applicant who falsifies their qualifications will continue to be banned from working in Singapore for life. Companies who employ a higher number of foreign workers compared to local workers, will be subject to harsher scrutiny and will have to prove that Singaporeans were considered fairly for job positions. This will possibly include providing the number of applications submitted by local workers for the job vacancy, the number of local workers that were interviewed, and the number of local workers in PME positions throughout the company. It is anticipated that the transfer of expertise to local workers will be sincerely encouraged by the MOM especially by companies who have an imbalanced ratio of foreign-to-local workers.