Singapore would not limit the number of applicants for its newest work permit, Singaporean Minister of Manpower Tan See Leng (陳詩龍) said, as the city-state seeks to burnish its appeal to the best minds globally.
Last week’s introduction of the Overseas Networks and Expertise (ONE) pass, as well as other steps that make it easier to hire expats, are a response to the tight labor market, Tan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Juliette Saly on Monday.
Singapore’s officials have said that they see competition heating up with the likes of London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Photo: AFP
“What we are really hoping to bring to Singapore are the rainmakers,” Tan said, referring to efforts to attract leaders in fields across science, technology, engineering and math, as well as finance, arts, culture and sports.
“It is an offensive strategy for us,” he added.
The ONE pass — a visa that allows holders as well as their partners to work for five years — is Singapore’s renewed effort to lure global talent after its COVID-19-era restrictions and efforts to protect local workers made it appear less welcoming.
As economies reopen and find growth still stuttering, nations including Germany, Thailand, the UK and the United Arab Emirates are seeking out top achievers to power their recovery by providing easier access.
“In the competition for talent, we’re in a very, very hyped-up mode,” Tan told a panel of Bloomberg editors and reporters separately. “There’s hyper competition, and we are very careful about what we reveal, because we’re not going after the numbers. We’re going after really the quality — it’s not the quantity.”
While reluctant to name too many specific sectors, Tan mentioned messenger RNA researchers and specialists in photovoltaic batteries as examples of highly sought-after experts.
Boosting innovation and increasing productivity are key for Singapore as it seeks to raise manufacturing value-add by 50 percent and annual exports to S$1 trillion (US$712 billion) by 2030.
That target would be difficult at the current rate of expansion, with estimates compiled by Bloomberg showing the economy is likely to grow 3.7 percent this year, among the slowest rates in Southeast Asia, with the pace seen easing further to 2.8 percent next year.
Tan said that the government was willing to pull out all the stops to support growth, and signaled some flexibility with regards to accommodating LGBTQ+ workers and their partners to live and work in the city-state.
The prevailing immigration laws that are “very pro-family” would not be a hurdle to allowing entry of leaders in the identified fields, he said.
“When you talk about this new pass that we’re targeting, I don’t think there is a specific quota or number,” he said, adding that “these are people that are really in the top space itself. I think we would be able to manage those kinds of applications.”
Tan’s comments follow Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) speech last month, when he said the government would repeal a colonial-era law that criminalizes sex between men, while pledging to protect the nation’s definition of marriage, which excludes same-sex unions.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS