NCMP Hazel Poa proposed leveraging foreign manpower quotas to incentivize family-friendly workplace policies, arguing that employers who support parental leave and hire marginalized groups should receive additional manpower allocations. Speaking during the Committee of Supply debate, she emphasized that such a reallocation would align business interests with societal goals, helping to address declining fertility rates and improve work-life balance—without additional government spending.
Mr Chairman,
As many employers in Singapore need access to foreign manpower, this is a carrot we can use to incentivise desired human resource policies and practices.
It is likely that new policies will be implemented to meet the desires of younger Singaporeans for better work-life balance. Policy changes will also be needed to deal with our plunging fertility rate. Such changes will likely impact the manpower situation for companies.
For example, parents with more children have called for more days of childcare leave. While this may create manpower constraints, PSP supports such a proposal, as it is only fair. Parents with more children would naturally require more days of child care leave. There will be more days when the children fall sick. Parents will need more days for commitments such as attending parent-teacher meetings and their child’s first day at school.
As we introduce new policies to suit new times, we cannot disregard the impact on other stakeholders. For example, many employers expressed concerns over the impact on their manpower situation when the additional 10 weeks of shared parental leave was announced.
If too much of the burden of our social objectives are laid on employers, there will be pushback. As the Chinese saying goes, 上有政策下有对策。Would this inadvertently make employers even more reluctant to employ married women? Even if we have laws against discriminations, we know that discriminations still exist.
A more reliable way is to align the interest of employers to that of society. For example, if employers know that an employee taking 30 weeks of parental leave would allow them to have access to an additional foreign personnel for 60 weeks, wouldn’t this make them more welcoming of their employees taking parental leave? Would this not incentivise family friendly practices so that their employees have more time to find their life partners and raise families?
At the national level, we can continue to limit the supply of foreign manpower coming into Singapore, but reallocate the quota towards employers with desired HR practices from other employers.
The reallocation can be based on the following factors:
- The recruitment and employment of senior citizens, ex-offenders, persons with disabilities, pregnant woman and those seeking to return to the workforce after a long break. These are groups facing difficulties when seeking employment.
- The utilisation of parental leave, child care leave, caregiving leave and other family friendly leave.
Companies that offer additional family friendly leave on top of statutory requirements should be rewarded further.
And the best thing is, this incentive does not cost the Government a dime! It merely requires a review of the criteria for quotas and Compass points. Whereas the employment credit schemes to encourage the employment of senior citizens, ex-offenders and persons with disabilities have to be paid for with tax revenue.
As the Government has said, raising our TFR needs a whole of society approach, and employers are a key component. Let the arrival of babies be a cause for celebration for employers too.
