Over $2 billion of construction projects deferred to stagger foreign worker demand

Over $2 billion of construction projects deferred to stagger foreign worker demand

More than $2 billion of public construction projects will be deferred in order to spread out labour demand, as the Government continues to slow the inflow of foreign workers, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Wednesday.


Get the full story from The Straits Times.

Here is an except from PM Lee's speech in Parliament on population, foreign PMEs and foreign construction workers, in point-form:

Population

a. Debate on the Population White Paper was vigorous and emotional

b. But it helped people to better understand the issue, and the Government to work out our plans

c. We are significantly reducing inflow of new arrivals, making a clear transition in our economy, and will review our population planning parameters nearer 2020

- One major issue in working out our population policy is how many foreign workers to allow

a. We have slowed inflow of foreign workers considerably, but did not freeze the numbers

b. Numbers still growing but much slower than before

i. Inflow of foreign workers almost halved since 2011

ii. Excluding construction, foreign workers growing a quarter as fast as in 2011

c. But even this slowdown has been painful for companies, especially SMEs

i. Many SMEs are struggling (Teo Siong Seng, Gan Thiam Poh)

ii. Some have had to shift their operations out of Singa¬pore, to Malaysia

iii. If we push them too hard, they may not survive, and many Singa¬porean jobs will be at risk

iv. Met several Malay SME owners at the SMCCI Malay Muslim Business Conference several weeks ago

v. They told me the business is there, but they just cannot find the workers

vi. Asked me to help

d. I said we will help all our companies, especially SMEs, adapt to having fewer foreign workers

i. We have many schemes, e.g. productivity grants such as PIC and PIC+ (Teo Ser Luck mentioned many of them)

ii. But we cannot ease up on the foreign worker limits

iii. Hope companies understand

e. Good thing we did not go to 0 per cent growth as some had argued for Foreign PMEs

- One group of foreign workers we are paying attention to: Foreign PMEs

a. Issue is less about numbers, but more about quality of foreign PMEs and fair treatment for Singa¬porean PMEs

b. We have been managing their number and profile

i. Tightened up on requirements for Employment Passes and S-Passes

ii. Developing Singaporean PMEs (e.g. Singapore-Industry Scholarships) and ensuring a level playing field (e.g. Fair Consideration Framework, which Amy Khor and Foo Mee Har spoke about)

c. Will continue to do more to give Singaporean PMEs every opportunity to succeed Foreign construction workers

- Another group we are managing carefully: Construction workers

a. Numbers and social impact much larger

b. We have tightened up on construction workers - raising levies, reducing quotas, raising productivity

c. Going beyond that, we are reviewing Government projects in the pipeline

i. Will continue with projects which are urgent, e.g. HDB flats, train network

ii. But have decided to defer more than $2 billion of projects to spread out demand for construction workers, e.g. new ministry and statutory board offices, new Science Centre, extensions to Gardens by the Bay

iii. These trade-offs are necessary; hope Singaporeans understand

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