[h=2]Gan goes to HK to study its ageing policies[/h]
December 5th, 2014 |
Author: Editorial
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong (formerly the Manpower Minister)
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong left for Hong Kong on Tuesday (2 Dec) on a four-day official visit to the city to study how it is managing its ageing population. He is expected to return home today (5 Dec).
In a statement, MOH said:
He also called on Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man as well as Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung.
Mr Gan is accompanied by senior officials from MOH.
Gan didn’t go learn from HK’s experience when he was Manpower Minister
It’s strange that Mr Gan now wants to learn from Hong Kong when he could have done so when he was the Manpower Minister in his previous position from 2008 to 2011.
He could have learned a lot from Hong Kong’s experience dealing with labour and wage issues.
For example, Hong Kong introduced the minimum wage law in 2010, after years of debate and deliberation. The proposed minimum wage of HK$28 (S$4.75) per hour was finally accepted by the Hong Kong Legislative Council with a vote of 53–1.
When he was the Manpower Minister, Mr Gan also kept dismissing the assertions of opposition MPs, academics and economists that foreign workers were depressing the wages of Singaporeans, especially those from the lower income group.
Following is a ST report on 27 August 2008 (‘Simplistic to say foreign workers depress local pay‘):
MOM reported that real income (including employers’ CPF contributions) at the 20th percentile of full-time employed residents (i.e. low wage workers) rose by 31% from $1,500 in 2009 to $1,972 in 2014. The increase after adjusting for inflation was 2.3% p.a. from 2009 to 2014, higher than the gain of 0.7% p.a. from 2004 to 2009 [Link].
If Mr Gan had gone to Hong Kong when he was the Manpower Minister, he would have found out that it’s actually not easy to employ foreign workers in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS) to employ foreign workers
In Hong Kong, it has the Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS) which allows employers with genuine difficulties in finding suitable staff locally, to import workers at technician level or below [Link]. Note that in Singapore, technician level foreign workers who were once classified under the work permit category have now come under a separate category called S-Pass.
In Hong Kong’s SLS, to ensure the priority of Hong Kong workers in employment and to safeguard their salaries and benefits, employers must accord priority to fill available job vacancies with Hong Kong workers and make active efforts to train them up for the vacancies. Hong Kong’s SLS operates on two cardinal principles:
Safeguards have been in place under the SLS to ensure that employers do provide job offers to their local workers first before applications for imported workers will be processed further.
Furthermore, imported workers under the SLS are required to be paid at least median monthly wages of Hong Kong workers in comparable positions and be accorded no less favourable treatment as that enjoyed by their local workers.
Under the SLS, the approval granted to an employer to import workers would not be automatically renewed. This is different from Singapore’s policy which liberally allows renewals. An employer in Hong Kong, who wishes to continue employing imported workers upon the expiry of their contracts are required to submit an application afresh to the Labour Department, and the application will be considered on its own merits. All applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.
To ensure priority of employment to Hong Kong workers, each application has to go through the newspaper advertising procedure, a mandatory local recruitment period, and the arrangement of tailor-made retraining courses by Hong Kong’s Employees Retraining Board if appropriate. The SLS is being monitored by the Labour Advisory Board in that each application is to be considered by the Board before it is submitted to the Government for approval or otherwise. That is, it’s a 2-step approval process in Hong Kong. In Singapore, employers can even go to the Govt website and submit their applications readily.
Successful Hong Kong employers are required to pay a levy that goes to the Employees Retraining Board to provide training for their local workers. The levy payable in a lump sum in respect of each imported worker is HK$400 multiplied by the number of months covered by the employment contract up to a maximum of 24 months. It will be collected after the approval for importing workers and before the issue of the work visa. It is not refundable under any circumstances. In Singapore, to help the employers, they can pay worker levy on a monthly basis. Also, the money collected by MOM goes to a general pool and does not necessarily only fund trainings for Singaporean workers.
As can be seen, the whole philosophy of Hong Kong govt is different from that of Singapore’s. One is pro-local workers and the other pro-employers. No prize for guessing where the Singapore govt’s loyalty lies.
Under Mr Gan, he was so desperate to import “foreign talents” that he even approved dubious people like PRC tour guide Yang Yin to work in Singapore (‘Yang Yin declares $7K salary‘).
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong left for Hong Kong on Tuesday (2 Dec) on a four-day official visit to the city to study how it is managing its ageing population. He is expected to return home today (5 Dec).
In a statement, MOH said:
Singapore hopes to learn from Hong Kong’s experience in developing its aged care sector and elderly care policies, as well as policies pertaining to healthcare financing.
During his visit, Mr Gan visited a range of healthcare facilities as well as community care providers which offer both health and social care for seniors.
He also called on Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man as well as Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung.
Mr Gan is accompanied by senior officials from MOH.
Gan didn’t go learn from HK’s experience when he was Manpower Minister
It’s strange that Mr Gan now wants to learn from Hong Kong when he could have done so when he was the Manpower Minister in his previous position from 2008 to 2011.
He could have learned a lot from Hong Kong’s experience dealing with labour and wage issues.
For example, Hong Kong introduced the minimum wage law in 2010, after years of debate and deliberation. The proposed minimum wage of HK$28 (S$4.75) per hour was finally accepted by the Hong Kong Legislative Council with a vote of 53–1.
When he was the Manpower Minister, Mr Gan also kept dismissing the assertions of opposition MPs, academics and economists that foreign workers were depressing the wages of Singaporeans, especially those from the lower income group.
Following is a ST report on 27 August 2008 (‘Simplistic to say foreign workers depress local pay‘):
It is ‘very simplistic’ to take the position that foreign workers depress the wages of Singaporeans.
Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong discredited this view yesterday in his reply to a question from Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim.
She said: ‘It was reported that there was wage stagnation for the lowest income earners for the last 10 years, and the economists attribute the presence of foreign workers as a downward pressure on residents’ wages. Does the minister agree with this assessment?’
Replying, Mr Gan noted that foreign workers form a big and growing pool in the services industry. Yet its wages were comparatively better.
‘In 2007, total wages went up by 5.9 per cent in the overall economy. Services sector wages went up by 6.5 per cent, and this is a sector with growing numbers of foreign workers in 2007.
‘Therefore the hypothesis that foreign workers depress wages is a very simplistic conclusion which may not be true,’ he argued.
But as recent data has shown, after the tightening of influx of foreign workers into Singapore in the past few years, the real income of the lower wage group has increased when compared to that of earlier years.Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong discredited this view yesterday in his reply to a question from Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim.
She said: ‘It was reported that there was wage stagnation for the lowest income earners for the last 10 years, and the economists attribute the presence of foreign workers as a downward pressure on residents’ wages. Does the minister agree with this assessment?’
Replying, Mr Gan noted that foreign workers form a big and growing pool in the services industry. Yet its wages were comparatively better.
‘In 2007, total wages went up by 5.9 per cent in the overall economy. Services sector wages went up by 6.5 per cent, and this is a sector with growing numbers of foreign workers in 2007.
‘Therefore the hypothesis that foreign workers depress wages is a very simplistic conclusion which may not be true,’ he argued.
MOM reported that real income (including employers’ CPF contributions) at the 20th percentile of full-time employed residents (i.e. low wage workers) rose by 31% from $1,500 in 2009 to $1,972 in 2014. The increase after adjusting for inflation was 2.3% p.a. from 2009 to 2014, higher than the gain of 0.7% p.a. from 2004 to 2009 [Link].
If Mr Gan had gone to Hong Kong when he was the Manpower Minister, he would have found out that it’s actually not easy to employ foreign workers in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS) to employ foreign workers
In Hong Kong, it has the Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS) which allows employers with genuine difficulties in finding suitable staff locally, to import workers at technician level or below [Link]. Note that in Singapore, technician level foreign workers who were once classified under the work permit category have now come under a separate category called S-Pass.
In Hong Kong’s SLS, to ensure the priority of Hong Kong workers in employment and to safeguard their salaries and benefits, employers must accord priority to fill available job vacancies with Hong Kong workers and make active efforts to train them up for the vacancies. Hong Kong’s SLS operates on two cardinal principles:
- local workers must be given priority in filling job vacancies available in the job market; and
- employers who are genuinely unable to recruit local workers to fill their job vacancies can be allowed to import workers.
Safeguards have been in place under the SLS to ensure that employers do provide job offers to their local workers first before applications for imported workers will be processed further.
Furthermore, imported workers under the SLS are required to be paid at least median monthly wages of Hong Kong workers in comparable positions and be accorded no less favourable treatment as that enjoyed by their local workers.
Under the SLS, the approval granted to an employer to import workers would not be automatically renewed. This is different from Singapore’s policy which liberally allows renewals. An employer in Hong Kong, who wishes to continue employing imported workers upon the expiry of their contracts are required to submit an application afresh to the Labour Department, and the application will be considered on its own merits. All applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.
To ensure priority of employment to Hong Kong workers, each application has to go through the newspaper advertising procedure, a mandatory local recruitment period, and the arrangement of tailor-made retraining courses by Hong Kong’s Employees Retraining Board if appropriate. The SLS is being monitored by the Labour Advisory Board in that each application is to be considered by the Board before it is submitted to the Government for approval or otherwise. That is, it’s a 2-step approval process in Hong Kong. In Singapore, employers can even go to the Govt website and submit their applications readily.
Successful Hong Kong employers are required to pay a levy that goes to the Employees Retraining Board to provide training for their local workers. The levy payable in a lump sum in respect of each imported worker is HK$400 multiplied by the number of months covered by the employment contract up to a maximum of 24 months. It will be collected after the approval for importing workers and before the issue of the work visa. It is not refundable under any circumstances. In Singapore, to help the employers, they can pay worker levy on a monthly basis. Also, the money collected by MOM goes to a general pool and does not necessarily only fund trainings for Singaporean workers.
As can be seen, the whole philosophy of Hong Kong govt is different from that of Singapore’s. One is pro-local workers and the other pro-employers. No prize for guessing where the Singapore govt’s loyalty lies.
Under Mr Gan, he was so desperate to import “foreign talents” that he even approved dubious people like PRC tour guide Yang Yin to work in Singapore (‘Yang Yin declares $7K salary‘).
