The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has placed another 47 employers on the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) Watchlist for possible discriminatory hiring practices.
Some 30 of these companies are in the financial services and professional services sectors, while the remaining 17 are from sectors that include administrative and support services, manufacturing, and education.
According to an MOM press statement on 5 August 2020, a number of these employers were placed on the watchlist because they have an exceptionally high share of foreign PMETs, compared to their industry peers.
These employers will be added to the watchlist of 1,200 employers the ministry has kept since 2016.
The employers will have their Employment Pass (EP) applications closely scrutinised, and those who are recalcitrant or uncooperative will face stiff penalties such has their work pass privileges cut back or revoked, said MOM.
MOM added that it will not tolerate employers who practice unfair hiring and who do not give locals a fair chance in hiring and promotion.
“Good to see firm and concrete actions and scrutiny taken against companies who practise unfair and discriminatory hiring practices,” said NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay in a Facebook post.
Mr Tay also stated more robust measures such as publicising the names of errant companies and reviewing exemptions from the Fair Consideration Framework ought to be considered to single out such companies, and to strengthen the Singaporean Core.
The 47 employers most recently placed on the watchlist hired some 2,000 EP holders, and more than 2,800 local PMETs collectively.
They comprise a mix of large and smaller firms – with the largest employing close to 2,000 PMETs.
MOM noted that while these firms were supporting local PMET employment, 18 of them had foreigners comprising more than half of their PMET workforce, which was significantly higher compared to their industry peers.
The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) found that employers on the watchlist were often not familiar with the skillset of local jobseekers, and the Government’s support measures to help local workers reskill and upskill.
While some claimed that they were unable to find local workers with the required expertise or experience, TAFEP found that they had not cast their net wide enough, such as by tapping on Professional Conversion Programmes.
Meanwhile, the other employers assumed that local workers lacked the necessary global exposure to function effectively – such as portfolio or product manager roles, which require market-specific knowledge, said TAFEP.
Most of these employers have since reviewed their hiring practices to give local jobseekers a fairer chance, following TAFEP’s intervention.
