SINGAPORE: The Singapore Business Federation (SBF) submitted a paper, urging the government to hold back on planned increases in levies of foreign workers.
Singapore has been tightening foreign worker policies these years as part of the economic restructuring, which aims at helping businesses to upgrade, create better jobs and raise wages.
According to the SBF’s latest survey 62 per cent chose business costs as the top concern of doing business, and 91 per cent said they were affected by economic restructuring.
Further SBF called for Budget 2015 measures to include holding back on planned increases in levies.
One of the major costs is the foreign worker levies, which has been pushed up year by year. And according to the Ministry of Manpower, levies on foreign workers will be raised again from July 1 this year, with the amount of levies in certain sectors expect to raise up to 40 per cent per month.
Lawrence Leow, chairman of the SME committee at the federation said the government’s original intention is to ensure that we do not pay Singaporeans a lower salary because we can tap on a cheaper source.
Now these levies are no longer relevant, with Singaporeans at full employment. I am also not hearing that Singaporeans are being underpaid, he added.
