Manpower Minister Josephine Teo wants to know if the Workers' Party (WP) supports the government's move to lower the Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC) for foreign workers in the services sector.

Speaking at the Ministry of Manpower's Committee of Supply debate on Tuesday, March 5, Teo spent a latter part of her speech addressing one of the concerns expressed by numerous members of parliament that companies in the services sector may be unable to cope with the lowered DRC.

But not before taking aim at the opposition.

Shots fired at WP

Teo opened her segment on the tightening of labour supply in the services sector by noting that many MPs rose during the budget debates to talk about sustaining business growth for Singapore companies, improving worker job quality, and making the labour market more resilient in the long term.

She singled out the WP, however, for being a "notable exception" in not speaking on these issues.

She questioned why this was the case, given "how important this is for workers", asking point-blank whether the WP supported the lowering of the DRC or not.

Why lower DRC in services

Clarifying that Singapore will "continue to need foreign manpower in services", Teo warned, that notwithstanding, that over-reliance on foreign labour is risky and unsustainable.

As the countries Singapore sources foreign manpower from continue to develop, Teo said workers may eventually choose not to leave their home countries for Singapore.

She also asked rhetorically if Singapore "as a society accept(s) that many jobs in services are unattractive to locals", shouldn't we then "invest effort to uplift some of these jobs, to be more appealing to locals?".

How some firms have responded

Sharing that some firms are "leading the way" in responding to the impending lowering of the DRC, Teo gave details of how they have made changes to their business.

She said some firms have re-examined where routine work can be reduced, like stock-taking in retail businesses.

Companies can also reduce headcount in back-end functions, she added, while keeping workers deployed in customer-facing roles to maintain customer service levels.

Ultimately, she said, firms may be able to pay each worker more with fewer staff.

More about the foreign labour reduction in the services sector:

Top image screenshot from Gov.sg Youtube