Govt will not U-turn on foreign manpower policies in near future: Tan Chuan-Jin

The focus he said is to help companies ease off their dependence on foreign labour and succeed in the adjustment process.

Mr Tan was speaking at a recording of Channel NewsAsia's programme "Ask Minister".

Mr Tan said: "I think I need to be quite definitive here, so that the signal is clear because I would say for some time, I would say the industry was thinking that government will make a U-turn so therefore the changes perhaps did not quite happen. I think people were hoping that if the pressure was high enough, we will make adjustments and so on. And we notice that as a result of that, the propensity to do the way we do things was not so significant."

He said should affected companies close down, assistance will be provided to them and their workers to find alternatives.

Going forward, Mr Tan said the government is looking for a leaner manpower set-up and businesses which depend on cheap labour should rethink how their businesses are run.

"In areas where you need to depend on low wage, cheaper labour, I think those are sectors we need to rethink - either in the way we do business, in the way we operate or maybe some of these sectors may not be quite relevant."

Wage growth will be another focus in the next couple of years.

Mr Tan said he is "very uncomfortable with the fact" that some of the wages of low wage workers have remained quite stagnant for some time.

He pointed that the government has already enhanced the Workfare programmes and adjusted the CPF contributions.

He said more will be done to put in place progressive work practices in industries such as security and cleaning.

"We are looking at restructuring the approach so progressive work practices will be put in place. So structurally, we will hope to see, and I think in a tight labour market, wages begin to move up but at the same time augmented by all the different measures to support that effort,” said Mr Tan.

As the economy restructures, Mr Tan said the aim is to provide Singaporeans at all levels with good opportunities and good jobs.

Catch more of the discussion with Mr Tan on Tuesday, April 16 at 8pm on "Ask Minister", exclusively on Channel NewsAsia.