Transience and Settlement: Singapore's Foreign Labor Policy

Abstract

Foreigners constitute 15 percent of the population and over 20 percent of the labor force in Singapore. They are bifurcated into the highly-skilled, high end as well as the unskilled, low end of the labor market. This large foreign labor force is managed by a comprehensive and highly selective foreign labor policy, which is described in this paper. The strict enforcement of a guestworker policy of transience on the one hand, and the liberal encouragement of settlement on the other, are the twin pillars of this policy. Seen originally as a dispensable appendage to a labor-scarce economy, foreign labor has now become integral to the economic and increasingly, population policy of the country, as evidenced by the recent announcement of a national policy to “attract foreign talent.”