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AFP SINGAPORE (AFP-Jiji) – Singapore has attracted high-tech manufacturers with incentives and a well-trained workforce, but the growing demand for highly skilled labor and the government's willingness to reducing the number of foreign workers could mean a more difficult route.
The city-state is a major producer of products ranging from aircraft engines to medical equipment to oil rigs. Leading companies such as Rolls-Royce and the German industrial conglomerate Siemens are present.
The British pioneer of home appliances, Dyson, will open its first electric car factory in the city. Vehicles should leave the production line from 2021 and announced this year their intention to move their global headquarters to Singapore.
But a potential shortage of more specialized skills as companies turn to areas such as robotics and 3D printing, as well as measures to make it harder to hire foreigners in this country in lack of space, can make less attractive the opportunity to settle in Singapore. In the future.
Authorities work closely with businesses to help them locate and find workers, while providing incentives such as tax breaks, but the rapid pace of technological change in many sectors makes planning more difficult for the government .
"Ten years ago, policy makers could plan with greater certainty," Song Seng Wun, a regional economist at CIMB Private Banking, told AFP.
"The era of disruptive technologies creates much more uncertainty," he added.
In a recent report, the Department of Labor stated that one in three positions in 2018 had been vacant for at least six months and that employers had cited the "lack of specialized skills needed ".
Singapore has traditionally hosted foreign workers in sectors ranging from construction to investment banking, to address skill shortages and jobs that are beyond the reach of the local population. 40% of its 5.6 million inhabitants come from abroad.
But in recent years, the large number of strangers in the city – who are only half the size of Los Angeles – has grown, with local residents blaming them for being overcrowded and increasing the cost of living.
The government has responded by making hiring more difficult in some sectors and giving companies priority for local recruitment. This includes initiatives such as the acceptance of applications by some Singaporeans for some of the most qualified jobs, for a specified period of time before they are open to foreigners.
At a forum on labor issues in Singapore, participants expressed concern that "some policies, such as increased levies on foreign workers and general quotas of foreign workers, have apparently the growth of many companies, "wrote Mooris Tjioe of the Institute of Policy Studies.
"The participants agreed that, for the moment, Singaporeans seem to have accepted a compromise between weaker economic growth and a restrictive foreign labor policy, in favor of social considerations," he wrote.
Nevertheless, a large number of high-tech manufacturers consider Singapore as the best place to set up its headquarters and factories in Asia, due to the proximity of booming regional markets, ease of doing business and stability despite relatively high costs.
The city has half of the world's 10 best-selling drugs, 70% of its oil platforms and the fifth largest source of refined petroleum.
Rolls-Royce manufactures its "Trent" engines for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A380 and A330neo aircraft at its Singapore plant and believes that cooperation between companies, government and educational institutions is a major advantage.
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