Very good article to share with you all...
http://limpehft.blogspot.sg/2013/09/will-fair-consideration-framework-make.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.sg/2013/09/will-fair-consideration-framework-make.html
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Will the Fair Consideration Framework make any difference?
- Thread starter Kopisai
- Start date
Considered, but not hired.
Considered but rejected due to NS liability which is inconvenient for project planning...
How can it be fair when they bring in foreigners who will work at the same job for less pay cos that's still higher than back in their native countries? If anyone think this is fair, they are stupid.
I wonder if any other country have this problem like ours??? Singaporeans being discriminated in their own country?? I know that other countries have a hire local first priority...but is it because they have a discrimination problem or was the rule just common sense.
I don't know... will you take the food for your children and use it to feed other children?
If you feed your own children, aren't you discriminating against other children?
I don't know... will you take the food for your children and use it to feed other children?
If you feed your own children, aren't you discriminating against other children?
If it is my house, then of course my kids get first priority. Thats plain old common sense!! If there is left overs, the other kids can have it. How can other way around when other kids get to eat and your own kids go hungry??
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Can't comment much about all countries but I've heard SE Asia countries like Thailand, Japan, Korea and even Hong Kong will give priority to local citizens first.
Well if you read the article the author used the example of UK system compared against Singapore , Lots of politician used the excuses that we are a financial sector we need the best talent (don't forget London is also a financial center), you find no excuses from the British politician for not hiring their own first...
Honestly if you are working in a financial institution whereby you cant really plan ahead , the CEO of the bank would rather pay EXTRA to hire a foreigner than a Singaporean with reservist liabilities . Imagine you are in the mist of structuring a loan deal and you try to write in to defer your reservist , they will give you the standard reply that you have been informed about your reservist training in advance and you are supposed to plan your work around it and they reject your application !
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*I have seen some articles appear in the press and social media about the "Fair Consideration Framework" scheme (abbreviated as FCF henceforth) designed to tighten the rules regarding the hiring of skilled foreign professionals. The question that many people have asked is whether it goes far enough to protect Singaporeans in their own job market when the odds are stacked against them (particularly against male Singaporeans because of their NS liability). Unsurprisingly, the reports in the media are mostly very favourable - but this is Singapore, the press prints what the government wants them to say. You can read the details about the FCF here on the MOM website.
The FCF scheme is modeled upon what is done in other countries - it is nothing new, why reinvent the wheel? The UK has a similar system which I am very familiar with, having first started working in the UK as a Singaporean before naturalizing as a British citizen many years ago. I have taken the time to read the details on both systems and see just how different or similar they are - and I did uncover one major difference. Given how much has been said already about the issue, I shall just focus on this one major difference between the two countries.
Let me show you how the process works under the FCF in Singapore and how it works in the UK. It's time for a UK vs Singapore Limpeh classic! *Firstly, in Singapore under the FCF:
1. A company has a vacancy and needs to hire a highly skilled professional - the company is unsure whether such an individual can be identified within the home market (ie. people in the job market already present in Singapore, looking for work and have all the necessary paperwork to allow them to work in Singapore already).
2. The firm must then advertise this vacancy on a new "jobs bank" website, created under the FCF, administered by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.
3. This ad must run for at least 14 days.
Will FCF help unemployed Singaporeans?
4. After 14 days, if the company still cannot find a suitable candidate to fill the post from within the home market, the company can then apply for an employment pass (EP) to fill the post with a foreign national. This does tantamount to the employer saying to the MOM, "see see? I got look hah, I look already hah, but cannot find leh, chur boh leh, gwa chur bueh tiok leh. Bo lang suitable leh, so have to hire foreigner loh. Can I have an EP please?"
5. MOM checks that the job has indeed appeared for at least 14 days on that jobs bank website and processes the application for the EP. It costs the employer S$330 to pay for the foreign worker levy.
Now let's compare this to how it works in the UK and whilst the process actually starts off very similarly, it then becomes quite different quite quickly. Here's how it works in the UK:
The system in the UK is very different.
1. A company has a vacancy and needs to hire a highly skilled professional - the company is unsure whether such an individual can be identified within the home market (ie. people in the job market already present in UK, looking for work and have all the necessary paperwork to allow them to work in UK already).
2. If this position is not covered under the list of short occupations (which allows employers to skip this process altogether), then the employer must advertise the vacancy for a single continuous period, with a minimum closing date of 28 calendar days from the date the advertisement first appeared. All jobs advertised to settled workers must be advertised using 2 of the permitted methods. Firstly, mandatory advertising online through the Jobcentre Plus Universal Jobmatch service (for jobs based in England, Wales and Scotland) or through Jobcentre Online for jobs based in Northern Ireland (unless one of the exemptions below applies); and one other permitted method (such as a national newspaper or professional journal).
Don't forget that because we have freedom of labour within the EU, this means that the home market can be defined as the whole of the EU rather than just the local area (eg. South Somerset, the Scottish Borders, Central Bournemouth or North Manchester) where the job is available.
3. The ads must run for at least 28 days.
4. After 28 days, if the company still cannot find a suitable candidate to fill the post from within the home market, then the company has go to to the Home Office and request to take a "Resident Labour Market Test" to prove that you are indeed unable to fill the post from within the home market.
5. The government official administering that test will ensure that the job vacancy has indeed been advertised for a minimum of 28 days in the appropriate channels. They then go one step further and check the recruitment process: the employer would have to provide information of all the applicants from within the home market and they will be subjected to checks to prove that none of the candidates did indeed fulfill the minimum basic requirements for the job. This is a detailed check that involves a lot of paperwork - the employers have to submit a lot of supporting evidence to prove their case. This process is taken very seriously by the relevant government departments.
It is not easy to pass this Resident Labour Market Test.
6. If the company passes the test, they still have to check if the get to sponsor a migrant worker for the post, because there is a limited quota for for these applications of "restricted certificate of sponsorship". These vary for each category of skilled workers - but the monthly quota in each of these categories is 1725 (please note that this is for the UK - a country much bigger than Singapore). Even if the company passes all the tests and gets to this stage and discovers that the quota for the month has been reached, the company has no choice but to delay the application until the next month (which inadvertently forces them to continue searching for a suitable candidate from within the home market).
7. If a company gets this far in the process and finally is given the green light to sponsor a migrant worker to fill the post, then it needs to pay a fee of between £371 to £494 ( S$742 to $988) to the home office to process the "restricted certificate of sponsorship". This fee does not include any other incidental expenses, such as lawyers fees - did I mention the lawyers? Not everyone is an expert in what the law states in this area, it is always safer for companies to consult a legal expert to help you with the application. They can tell you exactly what you can or cannot do so you don't waste your time pursuing an application that is not permitted under the current law!
Note how even the cheapest price of S$742 in the UK is a lot more expensive than Singapore's S$330 levy for hiring a foreigner for a job (when employers have to pay S$350 in CPF contributions for a local). This fee is to be paid entirely by the employer and it is illegal for the employer to get the applicant to pay for that fee. Note that there is no CPF or any equivalent fee for the employer to pay when they hire a local from the home market, so in the UK it's a choice of forking out a minimum of S$742 to hire a foreigner + legal fees or hire a local for free; whilst in Singapore it's S$350 for a local vs S$330 for a foreigner. The system in the UK uses costs to hurt employers who have to resort to bringing a foreigner in - whilst in Singapore, FCF still renders locals more expensive to hire than foreigners. (Do you Singaporeans even realize when you're being screwed by the PAP?)
8. After all this, the employer finally gets the right to legally employ the foreign worker. Phew.
Given how complex, tedious and expensive this process is, it is designed to encourage companies to keep trying to find a suitable candidate from within the home market. If it is simply not possible, then fine, the door is still open for the employer to hire a non-EU national for the job, but it is a far more difficult process than in Singapore. What this means in practice is that when you do come across a non-EU foreign national from say Japan, America or Singapore working in the UK, it means that these people are usually very highly skilled experts in their industry who command a very high salary, otherwise their employers wouldn't go to such lengths to secure them a work permit in the UK.
Highly skilled professionals can easily get work permits anywhere.
Therein lies the main difference between the UK and Singapore - in Singapore, as long as the employer lists the job for 14 days on that new jobs bank website, there's really nothing to stop them from getting that EP for that foreigner. Whereas in the UK, advertising the job for 28 days is but the first and easiest step, the main hurdles to cross are the Resident Labour Market Test and the monthly quota for work permits issued. So whilst it may seem on the surface that there are similarities between the Singaporean and British systems, in reality, the FCF scheme is going to be as ineffective as a paper umbrella in a typhoon without the checks and quotas that are built into the British system.
As for the Singaporeans who are quick to pour scorn on FCF, well... it is only coming into force almost a year from now, in August 2014, so the government does have plenty of time to revise it, refine it and fine tune it between now and August 2014. One does hope that they will do just that before I do wonder why they would announce a half-baked plan riddled with so many flaws, only to be mocked by the very people this scheme is trying to help? Yeah they can get the local papers to print all kinds of positive stories, but there's no denying the fact that it's yet another monumental cock up by PAP. No sir, we are not that easily fooled. Again, it is just extremely bad PR and planning on the part of the PAP - not only do they need better PR consultants, they need better planners when it comes to redefining their labour laws.
Salah, salah, salah!
The FCF may look as if it is based on systems implemented in countries like the UK, but it simply doesn't go far enough to have any real impact on the job market in Singapore. In it's current form, the FCF is simply going to create a new jobs website (as if there aren't enough in Singapore already, duh). None of this is going to change the way employers in Singapore pick foreigners over Singaporeans - the FCF is designed to show stupid PAP voters that the government is doing something to help Singaporeans when really, they couldn't be more happy with the status quo. Is there any logic at all or am I just trying to make sense of a huge mistake that arose from their sheer incompetence?
I have this theory: the government expects Singaporeans to put up with this inherently unfair system out of a sense of patriotism, the same way Singaporean men are expected to make big sacrifices by doing NS without being rewarded by the system. Maybe the government simply expects employers to hire Singaporeans out of patriotism, the same way everyone else is expected to express and show this patriotism in all other aspects of life in Singapore. Will this work? I doubt it - previous generations of Singaporeans have been only too willing to trust the PAP, but as the island gets more and more crowded, as the population races towards 6.9 million, it's every man for himself.
You know, one could try to take on the system and try to challenge the system, improve the system - but when I see monumental f*ck-ups like that on the part of the PAP, I can only say this: I am so glad I got the fuck out of Singapore all those years ago in 1997. The FCF is symptomatic of just how broken the system is - they think that a little bit of a wayang can actually fix the problem. It makes one wonder if they are more interested in fixing the problem or if they just want to be seen to be doing something about it (without actually doing anything). After all, if you are going to copy what is done in another country such as the UK - go ahead, all that information is out there in the public domain. Just google it - it is not some state secret, just copy a tried and tested system. So for the government to actually come up with a toothless tiger like the FCF, it's just incompetence on such a monumental scale.
The FCF scheme is modeled upon what is done in other countries - it is nothing new, why reinvent the wheel? The UK has a similar system which I am very familiar with, having first started working in the UK as a Singaporean before naturalizing as a British citizen many years ago. I have taken the time to read the details on both systems and see just how different or similar they are - and I did uncover one major difference. Given how much has been said already about the issue, I shall just focus on this one major difference between the two countries.
Let me show you how the process works under the FCF in Singapore and how it works in the UK. It's time for a UK vs Singapore Limpeh classic! *Firstly, in Singapore under the FCF:
1. A company has a vacancy and needs to hire a highly skilled professional - the company is unsure whether such an individual can be identified within the home market (ie. people in the job market already present in Singapore, looking for work and have all the necessary paperwork to allow them to work in Singapore already).
2. The firm must then advertise this vacancy on a new "jobs bank" website, created under the FCF, administered by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.
3. This ad must run for at least 14 days.
Will FCF help unemployed Singaporeans?
4. After 14 days, if the company still cannot find a suitable candidate to fill the post from within the home market, the company can then apply for an employment pass (EP) to fill the post with a foreign national. This does tantamount to the employer saying to the MOM, "see see? I got look hah, I look already hah, but cannot find leh, chur boh leh, gwa chur bueh tiok leh. Bo lang suitable leh, so have to hire foreigner loh. Can I have an EP please?"
5. MOM checks that the job has indeed appeared for at least 14 days on that jobs bank website and processes the application for the EP. It costs the employer S$330 to pay for the foreign worker levy.
Now let's compare this to how it works in the UK and whilst the process actually starts off very similarly, it then becomes quite different quite quickly. Here's how it works in the UK:
The system in the UK is very different.
1. A company has a vacancy and needs to hire a highly skilled professional - the company is unsure whether such an individual can be identified within the home market (ie. people in the job market already present in UK, looking for work and have all the necessary paperwork to allow them to work in UK already).
2. If this position is not covered under the list of short occupations (which allows employers to skip this process altogether), then the employer must advertise the vacancy for a single continuous period, with a minimum closing date of 28 calendar days from the date the advertisement first appeared. All jobs advertised to settled workers must be advertised using 2 of the permitted methods. Firstly, mandatory advertising online through the Jobcentre Plus Universal Jobmatch service (for jobs based in England, Wales and Scotland) or through Jobcentre Online for jobs based in Northern Ireland (unless one of the exemptions below applies); and one other permitted method (such as a national newspaper or professional journal).
Don't forget that because we have freedom of labour within the EU, this means that the home market can be defined as the whole of the EU rather than just the local area (eg. South Somerset, the Scottish Borders, Central Bournemouth or North Manchester) where the job is available.
3. The ads must run for at least 28 days.
4. After 28 days, if the company still cannot find a suitable candidate to fill the post from within the home market, then the company has go to to the Home Office and request to take a "Resident Labour Market Test" to prove that you are indeed unable to fill the post from within the home market.
5. The government official administering that test will ensure that the job vacancy has indeed been advertised for a minimum of 28 days in the appropriate channels. They then go one step further and check the recruitment process: the employer would have to provide information of all the applicants from within the home market and they will be subjected to checks to prove that none of the candidates did indeed fulfill the minimum basic requirements for the job. This is a detailed check that involves a lot of paperwork - the employers have to submit a lot of supporting evidence to prove their case. This process is taken very seriously by the relevant government departments.
It is not easy to pass this Resident Labour Market Test.
6. If the company passes the test, they still have to check if the get to sponsor a migrant worker for the post, because there is a limited quota for for these applications of "restricted certificate of sponsorship". These vary for each category of skilled workers - but the monthly quota in each of these categories is 1725 (please note that this is for the UK - a country much bigger than Singapore). Even if the company passes all the tests and gets to this stage and discovers that the quota for the month has been reached, the company has no choice but to delay the application until the next month (which inadvertently forces them to continue searching for a suitable candidate from within the home market).
7. If a company gets this far in the process and finally is given the green light to sponsor a migrant worker to fill the post, then it needs to pay a fee of between £371 to £494 ( S$742 to $988) to the home office to process the "restricted certificate of sponsorship". This fee does not include any other incidental expenses, such as lawyers fees - did I mention the lawyers? Not everyone is an expert in what the law states in this area, it is always safer for companies to consult a legal expert to help you with the application. They can tell you exactly what you can or cannot do so you don't waste your time pursuing an application that is not permitted under the current law!
Note how even the cheapest price of S$742 in the UK is a lot more expensive than Singapore's S$330 levy for hiring a foreigner for a job (when employers have to pay S$350 in CPF contributions for a local). This fee is to be paid entirely by the employer and it is illegal for the employer to get the applicant to pay for that fee. Note that there is no CPF or any equivalent fee for the employer to pay when they hire a local from the home market, so in the UK it's a choice of forking out a minimum of S$742 to hire a foreigner + legal fees or hire a local for free; whilst in Singapore it's S$350 for a local vs S$330 for a foreigner. The system in the UK uses costs to hurt employers who have to resort to bringing a foreigner in - whilst in Singapore, FCF still renders locals more expensive to hire than foreigners. (Do you Singaporeans even realize when you're being screwed by the PAP?)
8. After all this, the employer finally gets the right to legally employ the foreign worker. Phew.
Given how complex, tedious and expensive this process is, it is designed to encourage companies to keep trying to find a suitable candidate from within the home market. If it is simply not possible, then fine, the door is still open for the employer to hire a non-EU national for the job, but it is a far more difficult process than in Singapore. What this means in practice is that when you do come across a non-EU foreign national from say Japan, America or Singapore working in the UK, it means that these people are usually very highly skilled experts in their industry who command a very high salary, otherwise their employers wouldn't go to such lengths to secure them a work permit in the UK.
Highly skilled professionals can easily get work permits anywhere.
Therein lies the main difference between the UK and Singapore - in Singapore, as long as the employer lists the job for 14 days on that new jobs bank website, there's really nothing to stop them from getting that EP for that foreigner. Whereas in the UK, advertising the job for 28 days is but the first and easiest step, the main hurdles to cross are the Resident Labour Market Test and the monthly quota for work permits issued. So whilst it may seem on the surface that there are similarities between the Singaporean and British systems, in reality, the FCF scheme is going to be as ineffective as a paper umbrella in a typhoon without the checks and quotas that are built into the British system.
As for the Singaporeans who are quick to pour scorn on FCF, well... it is only coming into force almost a year from now, in August 2014, so the government does have plenty of time to revise it, refine it and fine tune it between now and August 2014. One does hope that they will do just that before I do wonder why they would announce a half-baked plan riddled with so many flaws, only to be mocked by the very people this scheme is trying to help? Yeah they can get the local papers to print all kinds of positive stories, but there's no denying the fact that it's yet another monumental cock up by PAP. No sir, we are not that easily fooled. Again, it is just extremely bad PR and planning on the part of the PAP - not only do they need better PR consultants, they need better planners when it comes to redefining their labour laws.
Salah, salah, salah!
The FCF may look as if it is based on systems implemented in countries like the UK, but it simply doesn't go far enough to have any real impact on the job market in Singapore. In it's current form, the FCF is simply going to create a new jobs website (as if there aren't enough in Singapore already, duh). None of this is going to change the way employers in Singapore pick foreigners over Singaporeans - the FCF is designed to show stupid PAP voters that the government is doing something to help Singaporeans when really, they couldn't be more happy with the status quo. Is there any logic at all or am I just trying to make sense of a huge mistake that arose from their sheer incompetence?
I have this theory: the government expects Singaporeans to put up with this inherently unfair system out of a sense of patriotism, the same way Singaporean men are expected to make big sacrifices by doing NS without being rewarded by the system. Maybe the government simply expects employers to hire Singaporeans out of patriotism, the same way everyone else is expected to express and show this patriotism in all other aspects of life in Singapore. Will this work? I doubt it - previous generations of Singaporeans have been only too willing to trust the PAP, but as the island gets more and more crowded, as the population races towards 6.9 million, it's every man for himself.
You know, one could try to take on the system and try to challenge the system, improve the system - but when I see monumental f*ck-ups like that on the part of the PAP, I can only say this: I am so glad I got the fuck out of Singapore all those years ago in 1997. The FCF is symptomatic of just how broken the system is - they think that a little bit of a wayang can actually fix the problem. It makes one wonder if they are more interested in fixing the problem or if they just want to be seen to be doing something about it (without actually doing anything). After all, if you are going to copy what is done in another country such as the UK - go ahead, all that information is out there in the public domain. Just google it - it is not some state secret, just copy a tried and tested system. So for the government to actually come up with a toothless tiger like the FCF, it's just incompetence on such a monumental scale.
