Ease foreign labor restrictions and support crowdfunding, entrepreneurs tell Singapore govt minister

Singapore is remaking its public policy towards entrepreneurship. To kickoff the process, it has begun a series of dialogue sessions with the startup community to gauge their concerns and brainstorm policy alternatives.

Spearheading this drive is the Entrepreneurship Review Committee, consisting mainly of prominent entrepreneurs and investors. Minister-of-State Teo Ser Luck, Chairman of the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), is also a committee member.

He was present at the first dialogue session held yesterday at Blk 71, the heart of Singapore’s tech startup scene. Discussions were dominated by the labor crunch issue and startup grants, with high rental costs and lack of access to expertise also brought up.

The discussions culminated in a series of presentations where participants nodded heads about what can be done by the government or the private sector.

Locals shunning startups, foreigners find it hard to join

Entrepreneurs at the invite-only session, predominantly Singaporeans, are facing difficulty attracting and retaining local tech development talent and employees in the services industry.

Generally, university graduates prefer working for multi-national corporations like Google, Facebook, or Microsoft, and Singapore’s low unemployement rate, at under two percent, would mean workers can afford to be picky.

While hiring foreign workers is the obvious way out, the recent tweaks in immigrant staff quotas by the government have made things difficult.

Last year, the allowable local-foreign employees ratio for mid-level workers earning at least USD 1,600 was reduced from 25 percent to 20 percent for all industries. Once a company exceeds that percentage of immigrant labor, it will not be allowed to bring in any more foreign workers.

To counter this, the government has launched a series of initiatives to boost employee training and productivity. The fact remains, however, that implementing smart work practices still require quality employees. Getting them up to speed takes time, and time is a commodity startups are short of.

Attendees at the session put forward a few suggestions:

1) Move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to foreign labor quotas.

Instead of reductions across the board, the government can consider loosening restrictions for industries that desperately need foreign talent. Foreign entrepreneurs applying for the EntrePass should have an easier time.

The government can consider different foreign worker quotas for MNCs and SMEs, such that startups with less ability to deal with bureaucracy won’t have to deal with it.

2) SMEs and startups should have better access to students and undergraduates.

Smaller companies should have the opportunity to pitch to students and engage them at the junior college level and below. Longer-term apprenticeship programs could be set up to give youngsters a chance to know the company and grow with it.

Grants are attracting people who shouldn’t be entrepreneurs

Networking, internationalization, and high rental costs