SINGAPORE IS introducing a compulsory English test for foreigners who want a permit as a skilled worker next year, amid public fears about competition for jobs and irritation about language difficulties in the service industry.
Unemployment has increased in the city-state since the global recession, and earlier this year the government said it would reduce the numbers of foreign workers allowed in to Singapore.
“Singaporeans know too well the frustrations of not being understood by service staff from foreign lands when out for a meal or shopping in Orchard Road,” said a story in the Straits Times.
The new rule is part of a government effort to raise standards in three industries where speaking English is important – retail, food and beverage, and hotels, the paper reported.
Singaporeans at times resent jobs going to foreigners, but especially those who struggle to communicate with locals and shift the delicate ethnic balance in multi-racial Singapore. Around three quarters of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese, with the rest ethnic Malay, Indian or overseas workers.
The rules seem aimed in particular at new immigrants from China, who speak Mandarin Chinese but many of whom cannot communicate with Malays, Indians or expatriate workers.
A modern city-state of 4.5 million people at the southern end of the Malay peninsula, Singapore’s economy had for long been dependent on manufacturing, but is now trying to switch to a more services-based economy.
The move is a reaction to public resentment. Even some ethnic Chinese in Singapore struggle with Mandarin, although it is one of the official languages, alongside English, Malay and Tamil.
Although the economy is technically out of recession, unemployment is still expected to rise. It reached 5 per cent in the third quarter this year.