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"We are hoping that in six months or so, maybe things will stabilise."Īgreeing, executive director and chief operating officer Kenneth Loo from Straits Construction said that although Manpower Minister Tan had said that foreign manpower numbers are almost back to pre-pandemic levels, the "benchmark" has shifted due to lost time on many construction projects.
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it’s a double whammy (with) the backlog of projects and the sheer number of projects going into the market due to pent-up demand," he said. However, even if manpower is back to pre-pandemic levels, there is a lot more work to be done than before, Mr Akbar said. He is looking to bring in about 20 per cent more workers to replenish his workforce to pre-pandemic levels and is still in the process of doing so given the recently eased measures. He said that about 20 per cent of his foreign workforce - comprising largely Bangladeshi and Indian workers - intend to return to their home countries for visits. Mr Akbar Kader, managing director of Nan Guan Construction, said that the removal of the entry approval requirement meant that he could hire more workers, but it also meant that many of them wanted to return to their home countries to see their families.įor many of them, they had not been able to go home for the past two years, because they were afraid that they would not be able to immediately return due to the entry approval requirement at that time. Then, from May 1, MOM removed the requirement for all fully vaccinated non-Malaysian work permit holders holding an in-principle approval in the construction, marine shipyard and process sectors.Īll vaccinated Malaysian work pass holders could enter Singapore since December last year through the vaccinated travel lane between the two countries at that time, before land borders opened for fully vaccinated travellers between both countries on April 1. In February, it was removed for all fully vaccinated long-term pass holders, but not for work permit holders. The entry approval requirement has since progressively eased. This resulted in a shortage of workers at that time. To manage the risk of imported Covid-19 cases at the start of the pandemic, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) had in March 2020 required all new and existing work pass holders planning to enter Singapore to obtain entry approvals before they arrived here.įirms and workers previously told TODAY that during the pandemic, these approvals were not guaranteed and some work permit holders had to wait weeks before they could enter Singapore. "The Government has taken steps to resume the inflow of foreign workers to ease the manpower crunch, and we progressively lifted border restrictions from late last year," he said. On May 9, Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said in Parliament that the manpower shortages that have plagued some sectors will likely ease in the coming months with more foreign workers entering Singapore as borders reopen. This led to delays in the completion of projects, as well as firms having to increase their quotations as labour costs increased due to the drop in supply. The construction sector was badly hit by a manpower crunch during the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the restricted flow of migrant workers into Singapore.