How will election results impact Singapore’s immigration curbs?

There could be selective easing for certain sectors.

The newly-elected government will not loosen its grip on Singapore’s stringent immigration curbs, despite the fact that these measures have led to a widespread labour crunch in the city-state.

“We think the authorities will remain cautious on relaxing the foreign workers quotas too much, given its concerted National Productivity-drive,” RHB Research said in a report.

However, RHB Research expects that the government will expedite processing of Permanent Resident/Singapore Citizen applications to ease the backlog that has built up in recent months.

DBS analysts agree that immigration curbs are unlikely to be lifted in the near future, but they expect that there could be selective easing in certain manpower-intensive sectors.

“The existing foreign manpower curbs and tight immigration policies are unlikely to be unwound. However, given the existing labour crunch and the fact that some foreign workers are here to fill jobs shunned by Singaporeans, there could be some marginal easing in specific industries, e.g., healthcare sector,” said DBS.

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