NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Josephine Teo is once again urging the government to rethink its foreign workers policy in a bid to boost productivity.
She suggested that companies that can increase their output be allocated with more foreign workers as a reward for instance.
Currently, the quota is fixed according to industries.
In the construction sector for example, employers can hire seven foreigners for every Singaporean employed, even if the productivity is less than desirable.
"Right now, as long as you're in the same sector, you're entitled to the same foreign worker quota but actually maybe his company makes a more serious effort and somehow his productivity level is much higher than yours so should we find way to differentiate? If he's productive, it benefits his Singapore workers. Why should I limit him to the same extent I limit you?"
Mrs Teo's call for change comes just a week after Labour Chief Lim Swee Say encouraged companies to boost their output even as they cut costs to save jobs.
She feels, the steady decline in productivity in recent quarters, is an unintended consequence of the foreign worker policy which the government did not forsee when drafting the laws.
Others have become more reliant on foreign labour, instead of thinking how they can find better ways to do the same job, for instance, through the Job Recreation Programme or JRP.
"If indeed they can find these foreign workers who're good why should we stop the companies. But the fact is we talked to many people, the standards are also not there otherwise why do we need to do JRP? So we've become abit more tolerant of poorer standards. I mean you talk about hawker centre cleaning, we're partly culprits right? We continue to patronise the stalls which are dirty so who's to blame?"
To improve the quality of workers, Mrs Teo suggested tapping the Workforce Skills Qualifications Framework to sieve out the skilled foreign workers.
Now it's used largely to assess and acknowledge the skills of local workers.
Mrs Teo was speaking at a National Day Observance ceremony today.
--938Live