Skip to main content

The Fair Consideration Framework is Fair

By Will Beattie
The Fair Consideration Framework was established in August 2014 with the primary objective of giving Singaporeans fair consideration for jobs and to help reduce discriminatory HR practices that favour foreigners.

Recently there was a discussion on e27 related to Singapore's Fair Consideration Framework and it seems that there are some common misconceptions about it which I would like to help clarify. As a Singapore Permanent Resident, I need to declare my bias on this issue.

In my opinion, any policy that helps to reduce discriminatory HR practices is a good thing.
Now you could argue that this policy is discriminatory but I personally don't think it's unreasonable for the Singapore Government to put the interests of their citizens before foreigners and you'd be hard-pressed to find a Government who does not do the same.

Australia just announced in their latest budget that employers will have to pay a levy of up to AUD $5,000 for each foreign worker they employ with the funds being directed into training programs for Australians.

Indonesia does not allow foreigners to work in any of the following areas:
  • Human Resources Department
  • Legal department
  • Health, safety, and environment affairs
  • Supply chain management
  • Quality control and inspection
Every country has it's quirks when it comes to hiring foreigners and if you're operating a business in a foreign land then that's the cost of doing business.

Here are the facts on Singapore's Fair Consideration Framework.

Requirements

  • The employer must advertise the role on the Jobs Bank for at least 14 days
    • The Jobs Bank is an online portal only accessible to Singapore Citizens and Singapore Permanent Residents using SingPass for authentication
  • The job ad must include the following details
    • Position (job title) and job description
    • Job requirements such as qualifications, skills required, experience
    • Salary range
  • The Job Ad must comply with Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices

Exemptions

You are exempted from the requirements if any of the following are true:
  • The company has less than 25 employees
  • The monthly salary is SGD $12,000 or more
  • The job is to be filled by an intra-corporate transferee (ICTs) as defined under the World Trade
    Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO GATS)
  • The job is necessary for short-term contingencies (i.e. period of employment in Singapore for
    not more than one month)
  • Situations where there is no new job vacancy in your company:
    • Conversion of your existing work pass holder to EP in the same company
    • Renewal of the pass of your existing EP holder
    • Your overseas vendor sending their staff to fulfil their contract for services to your
      company

Summary

In my opinion, the overall requirements are fair and not overly onerous to businesses.
Most if not all start-ups would be exempted anyhow as they likely have less than 25 employees if you have more then you've got bigger problems to worry about.
Before the Fair Consideration Framework was in place, I always tried to hire locals in the first instance as I see foreigners especially those who are brand new to Singapore having a large amount of risk. Also, I strongly believe that as foreigners operating businesses in Singapore we have an obligation to train and nurture the local talent.

Popular posts from this blog

ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate - Upgrade issues - Spec#

By
First of all, great news that the ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate has finally been released.  Full credit to the team for the hard work on this.  You can get the download here  However this is the first time I have had upgrade issues.  Phil Haack has noted some of the issues here   If like me you have lot's of CTP's and Add-Ins then you might experience some pain in Uninstalling MVC Beta on Vista SP1  This is the list of Add-Ins / CTP's I had to uninstall to get it to work  Spec# PEX Resharper 4.1  Sourcelinks ANTS Profiler 4   Can't say I'm too impressed as it wasted over an hour of my time.  As it turned out Spec# turned out to be the offending culprit, it's forgiveable to have issues with a third party product but a Microsoft one? Guess no-one on the ASP.NET team has Spec# installed. 
Read more

Freeing Disk Space on C:\ Windows Server 2008

By Will Beattie
  I just spent the last little while trying to clear space on our servers in order to install .NET 4.5 . Decided to post so my future self can find the information when I next have to do this. I performed all the usual tasks: Deleting any files/folders from C:\windows\temp and C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Temp Delete all EventViewer logs Save to another Disk if you want to keep them Remove any unused programs, e.g. Firefox Remove anything in C:\inetpub\logs Remove any file/folders C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles Remove any file/folders from C:\Users\%UserName%\Downloads Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:\Users\%UserName%\Desktop Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:\Users\%UserName%\My Documents Stop Windows Update service and remove all files/folders from C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution Deleting an Event Logs Run COMPCLN.exe Move the Virtual Memory file to another disk However this wasn’t enough & I found the most space...
Read more

CPF Contribution Rates for new Singapore Permanent Residents (SPR’s)

By Will Beattie
Recently my wife and I applied and got approved for Singapore Permanent Residency. After completing the formalities the most significant immediate change is the contribution to CPF which is Singapore’s mandatory social security savings scheme requiring contributions from employers and employees. CPF contributions start from the date you obtain SPR status, which is the date of the entry permit.   Being a relentless budgeter I needed to know exactly how much I and my employer would have to contribute so that I could adjust my budget accordingly as the employee contributions get deducted from the monthly salary. After doing some research I discovered that there is a “graduated” approach to CPF contributions for new SPR’s where the contributions gradually increase in the first and second year and then upon reaching the third year are at the full amount. Note: There is an option for employers to contribute the full amount for year 1 and year 2 and the employee can use the gra...
Read more