Fair Consideration Framework: How will the new advertising requirement affect your business?

As a prelude to the mandatory job advertising for Employment Pass (EP) applications under the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) on 1 August 2014, the new Jobs Bank portal and the revamped Employment Pass Online (EP Online) portal are being tested by selected employers and individuals.

Although feedback from those testing the new systems will be valuable, what concerns will remain beyond any technology issues for the implementation of the FCF?

One lingering concern is the inevitable delay for Employment Pass applications with the minimum fourteen day mandatory job advertising requirement which will affect companies across all industries that need to recruit skilled foreign nationals.

To alleviate this concern, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has already announced some exemptions from the advertising requirement:

• positions which pay a monthly salary of $12,000 or higher;
• companies employing twenty-five or fewer employees, and;
• Intra-Company Transfers where the employee has been employed for at least one year in the company before being posted to the subsidiary or affiliated firm/branch in Singapore and is a “manager/executive/specialist” based on the MOM’s definition.

Whilst these exemptions will provide some relief, a major problem remains for many short-term assignees who may not qualify for the Intra-Company Transfer exemption either due to the period of time employed with the company overseas or due to the nature of their role.

Many companies are highly reliant on short-term assignees to support their global businesses in order to support, for example, maintenance contracts, projects or temporary vacancies often for a matter of weeks or months. Such assignments do not fill a role, as such, but require short-term transient workers to do what they are trained to do and move on to another location.

Under the current rules, companies will still need to advertise these “roles” irrespective of the length of the assignment. A further exemption would significantly help employers who face this situation.

The MOM has also announced that it will be investigating firms who have a disproportionately high number of foreign workers as well as any company reported to have discriminatory hiring practices by a member of the public - there is an option for Singaporeans to report an advertisement posted on the Jobs Bank that appears to be discriminatory. Sanctions are likely to be imposed on companies that do not comply fully with the new framework.

Despite these concerns, there is criticism that the changes do not go far enough to ensure Singaporeans are given a fair opportunity to be considered for professional, management and executive (PME) roles.

Following the President’s Address to Parliament on Monday (26 May), Ms Foo Mee Har of the West Coast GRC was reported to have said “The Manpower Minister emphasised that the Fair Consideration Framework is not about ‘hire Singaporeans first’ but many are asking, “why not?”.

Organisations should have the flexibility to hire the best talent to meet their requirements and this is recognised by the Government. That is not to say that companies will escape scrutiny, since it has been made clear by the MOM that companies will be required to produce evidence of recruitment practices as well as documents such as handbooks and organisation charts if there is a concern over hiring practices.

The Government seems to be committed to ensuring that Singaporeans are considered fairly for skilled professional positions but will not force companies to ’hire Singaporeans first’. Time will tell whether the new advertising requirement will balance the concerns of Singaporeans and the international business community but, for now, we will just have to wait for the full implementation in August before the full impact of the FCF is felt.