THIS year with a booming economy, we will definitely need more foreign workers so we can create our jobs in Singapore.
A few months ago, I mentioned to the press that we could need more than 100,000 foreign workers this year.
Since then, we've recalculated. Maybe we'll get by with a few less, perhaps 80,000 workers. But I said this to highlight the trade-off which we face and which we cannot avoid. You want higher growth which will benefit our workers, that also means accepting more foreign workers to come and work in Singapore. You choke off the foreign workers, the economy is stifled, growth is not here, our workers will suffer.
This is a very hot topic in Singapore, foreign workers and also immigration. We've held many dialogue sessions with the grassroots, with the residents and I think Singaporeans understand logically why we need foreign workers, why we need this immigration. But they are still concerned about competition for jobs, about crowding, competing for housing or for transport on MRT and deeper things like the character of our society.
Of course there's the psychological aspect too, the sense that they want to be valued and that Singaporeans are more valued than foreigners.
And these concerns come through many other channels as well: union leaders, newspapers columns. When we build workers' dormitories, we remember the sensitivities which can be aroused. Serangoon Gardens, two years ago, got very upset because things were not explained well enough.
I understand these sentiments. These are legitimate concerns, which we take seriously. We don't brush them aside but we have to weigh them against the plus side of having the foreign workers and immigrants, why it is necessary for us to let in a controlled inflow so we can derive benefits from it.
Tonight, I can't solve the whole problem, but I will try and explain why staying open is going to benefit us and how.
First, because we need to gain talent. It makes a tremendous difference to us, doing critical work in our economy, helping Singapore to become an outstanding city. We have very good people but never enough. And therefore we need to draw from all over the world, to supplement our local pool.
You take professionals, for example, architects. There are lots of talented young architects in Singapore.
The majority of the architects are native Singaporeans, although quite a few are foreign-born. And the foreign-born ones include the two architects who built The Pinnacle, a husband-and-wife team.
The husband, Mr Khoo Peng Beng, is from Ipoh, now a PR. The wife, Belinda Huang, is from Selangor, now a Singapore citizen. They won a design competition to build on the Duxton Plain site and the result is one of the most sought-after HDB projects in Singapore.
For the local architects, you might consider this foreign competition too fierce, unfair. But for Singaporeans, and especially for the residents of Pinnacle, we benefit. We get a better living environment, we get a more beautiful city and I think even our own architects benefit because from the competition, from that stimulus, they will do better and produce better works too.
Take sports talent as another example. We are grooming our own. Our young sportsmen have done very well in the YOG, the young Olympians. And in some sports, we are near the top in the world rankings, like sailing or bowling.
But in other sports we still need to draw on new citizens, like table tennis. The second reason is we need reinforcements to grow our economy and create better jobs for Singaporeans.
The foreign workers supplement our ranks and enable us to build successful companies. You take Keppel and SembCorp. They are world beaters.
Together they employ 20,000 people in Singapore, of whom 5,000 are Singa-poreans. The other 15,000 are foreign workers, professionals. Without the foreign workers, the Singaporean jobs wouldn't exist. Of course, the converse is true, too. Without the Singaporean brains working the system and bringing the foreign workers together and organising them, the foreign worker jobs wouldn't exist either.
The final reason we need immigrants is to make up for our shortfall in babies. Our efforts to produce more Singaporean babies have not yielded results, not yet. Two years ago, I made a long speech in the National Day Rally about new measures. Last year, we produced fewer babies than in 2008. So for this type of productivity, please work harder.
Foreign workers versus immigrants
BUT I think we should make an important distinction between foreign workers and immigrants, which means PRs and citizens.
Foreign workers are transient, we need them to work in the factories, in the banks, hospitals, shipyards, construction projects. When the job is done, they will leave. When there are no jobs here, they will go.
So temporarily, the economy is hot, I think we can accept higher numbers. For the longer term, we are pushing to raise productivity so we can rely less on foreign workers. But meanwhile, we want to build flats, MRT lines, IRs, so please bear with the larger numbers for the time being. That's foreign workers.
Immigrants: The PRs and the citizens are far fewer. We are very careful whom we accept. Not only must they contribute to our economy but they've also got to integrate with our society and strike roots here.
We've moved quite fast over the last five years. We've accepted a larger inflow of foreign workers and we've taken in more new citizens and PRs. Conditions were good, we caught the wind, we moved forward. But now I think we should consolidate, slow down the pace.
We can't continue going like this and increasing our population 100,000, 150,000 a year indefinitely and we should give Singaporeans time to adjust, and our society time to settle and integrate better the new arrivals. But we must not close ourselves up.
The basic principle for us is always, citizens come first and that's how our policies are designed: citizens before PRs, PRs before other foreigners and non-residents.
Last year, we reviewed the policies, we changed the subsidies to make this distinction sharper, so education fees, health-care subsidies, housing subsidies all adjusted, so it's quite clear that the Singaporeans get the best deal.
But not everything is reduced to subsidies and dollars. There are other less tangible issues, too, which I will also talk about, not to dismiss them but to explain how we can manage the problems and enjoy the benefits of the inflow by limiting the down side.
Citizens come first
FIRST of all, competition from foreigners. I think many Singaporeans accept the economic logic that the economy needs these foreigners but they fear the impact on them. What if a foreigner takes my job? What if my own wages get pushed out? I understand this, I empathise and in fact we take measures to help to protect Singaporeans.
We don't allow the foreigners to come in uncontrolled because otherwise, we would be swamped. We restrict the foreign workers with dependency ratios, with the foreign worker levies.
The employer pays an extra foreign worker levy to discourage him from hiring the foreigner and look for a Singaporean instead. The levies are going up, they are going to go up further. Some employers may feel the pinch but it is necessary because we need to manage the inflow and not have an indefinite number.
On the other side, we have Workfare, which helps low-income Singaporeans so when they work, they get a top-up to their wage from the Government. That makes it more worth their while to work and improves what they receive and overall, they end up better off compared to the foreigner who gets no Workfare.
This year, we're going to spend $400 million on Workfare, giving it to 400,000 Singaporeans. That's a lot of money and I think it's a lot of help to our lower-income group. But the protection can only go so far. If you lack the skills or you're not competitive, then it doesn't matter how high the foreign worker levy is or how generous the Workfare is, the jobs are still going to go elsewhere. I've discussed this question with the union leaders regularly and they understand the logic. They were more worried a few years ago when the flows were growing and they were not sure of the impact on Singapore workers, but now their members are quite convinced that their companies benefit from being able to hire foreign workers.
At the firm level, within each of the companies, the foreigners and the Singaporean workers work well together. In one hotel, the housekeeping department employs both locals and foreign workers. The locals are the aunties, the more experienced ones, and the foreign workers are the younger ones. The aunties treat the foreign workers like their own daughters or nieces. So when they arrive in Singapore, they help to orientate them, even help them to cook or pack their food for them.
The heavier physical tasks like turning over mattresses, younger foreign workers would be able to do and between the two, they've worked out a good working relationship and become firm friends. When one of the foreign workers applied for PR, a supervisor and the union representative asked the management to assist in the PR application.
The second worry of Singaporeans is whether the new arrivals will integrate into our society. Will they identify with Singapore? Will they grow roots here? After all, they speak and dress differently, their social norms are different and they may speak no English or very little English. So it's harder to fit in and communicate, particularly with the non-Chinese.
We encourage the immigrants to learn English. Our community centres will offer basic English courses and I think if they'll come up and pick up a few words, this proficiency will help them to integrate and therefore, become more ready for permanent residence or citizenship later on should they apply for it. But more important than language or social graces, the immigrants have to get along with the different races here and adopt our egalitarian norms.
This is a multiracial society. Our Chinese are used to getting along with Malays and Indians. Our Indians are used to getting along with Malays and with Chinese.
The immigrant Chinese who come, the immigrant Indians who come, may not be used to this and it takes some time for them to adjust, but they should make the effort. Some of them have got along fine.
We have foreign workers now working as bus drivers in SBS. I asked the CEO how it is getting along. And he said: 'Well, it's not bad. They sometimes get flak but sometimes it works out very well.' And he gave me an example of Ms Zhao Xiaodong who comes from Dalian and she's the bus captain of Service 109 from Serangoon Interchange to Changi Village going through Pasir Ris and she is well liked by her passengers, especially the Pasir Ris residents. So at one point she had to go away for a week, several of the commuters wrote to SBS.
They said: 'What's happened to our bus driver? She is polite, she's caring, she's considerate to pregnant women and the elderly. Have you transferred her to another route or maybe she's left SBS? Whatever it is, please bring her back to Service 109', which I think is where she still is.
So I think at the personal level if you can get on and the relationships can be established, that's a tremendous help. Singaporeans, too, should do their part to understand and integrate the new arrivals.
The key to this is not just your arguments and the principles and the logic, but the personal ties and the friendships.
On the immigrants side, I think it's very helpful if the new citizens and the PRs can also make the effort to engage Singaporeans, to give back to Singapore society.
And some of them are doing this.
For example, in Sinda, there's Project Read, a programme where volunteers adopt kids from disadvantaged homes and spend time with the kids, reading to them, mentoring them, helping them to make progress. And it's benefited over 4,000 kids. And almost half the volunteers are PRs and new citizens.
I think both sides have to make the effort. Growing roots takes time. You can't plant an instant tree and tomorrow, expect it to have taken root.
It takes time but gradually the new arrivals will connect, identify with Singapore and finally, we hope some will make the decision to commit themselves and become Singapore citizens.
