A group of Singapore researchers is proposing a skills-based, tiered system of work pass for foreign maids who look after the elderly.

It could offer better pay and perks, like an option to live in their own accommodation, for those who are more skilful.

The move could ensure Singapore stays an attractive destination for domestic workers, said the researchers.

Currently, all maids get the same work permit regardless of their experience or skills.

The researchers from the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute (ARI) made the suggestion following interviews with industry players like maid training centres in Indonesia for their ongoing study.

The main grouse they found in Indonesia is that Singaporean employers pay less and deduct more from the maid’s salary, as it is done over a shorter period, than their counterparts in Taiwan and Hong Kong, said the institute’s research and communications officer Kellynn Wee.

The monthly deduction is to repay the employer for paying the worker’s recruitment and placement fees in advance.

The tiered system, listed in a report, will be among the issues to be discussed at a seminar today.

The meeting, organised by ARI, will focus on the employment of foreign domestic workers and how they and employment agents figure in Singapore’s care industry over the long term.

It comes amid efforts to further improve Singapore’s home-based care industry for its greying population. One in five people here is expected to be older than 65 by 2030.

Many Singaporeans, however, prefer to hire a foreign maid for eldercare instead of a local nurse. This is despite many of the maids not being qualified or equipped to do the job, the researchers noted.

Added Ms Wee: “The tiered system would provide a way upwards for domestic workers who come here and have experience with the culture. It is an incentive to stay here longer and get more training.”

Another suggestion they made is to study the feasibility of replacing the current system of deducting the hiring fees from the maid’s salary.

The maids and Singapore employers could be overcharged because the collection of the fees by Singapore maid agents on behalf of overseas recruiters is not well-regulated, they said.

Indonesia has begun requiring the maids to take a bank loan to pay the recruiters.

These recommendations are derived from a year of interviews with players such as employment agents, non-governmental organisations, and recruitment centre owners here and in Indonesia.

Enumerated in a brief report last month, it is a joint effort with ARI research assistant Charmian Goh and Professor Brenda Yeoh, research leader at ARI’s Asian Migration Research Cluster and dean of the university’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Best Home Employment Agency owner Tay Khoon Beng, who was one of those interviewed for the study, feels letting maids live outside the home is a natural progression for the industry.

“In the future when there are fewer kids, more older people, better childcare and smaller homes, maids may not need to live in,” he said.

“Multiple families could share one helper, which could lower the cost of hire and raise the income of helpers.”

This article was first published on Oct 21, 2016.
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Investors reading the tea leaves on the state of the private residential market can expect fresh clues to emerge this weekend with three new projects on preview.

The trio are neatly spread across the main regions and price points, with boutique development 38 Jervois in the prime District 10, Queens Peak on the city fringe, and Parc Riviera in the suburbs.

Going by brisk sales at recent launches Forest Woods and The Alps Residences, analysts expect home hunters to pick up smaller units again at upcoming projects.

“The underlying demand is still there, but buyers are looking for value. It is still a play on unit sizes and overall quantum,” said Mr Desmond Sim, head of CBRE Research for Singapore and South-east Asia.

Consultancy Knight Frank said the encouraging sales at Forest Woods – near Serangoon MRT station and Nex shopping mall – on its first weekend “reflect a possibly new price acceptance level for projects with strong attributes”.

“There could be more interest for new project launches going forward, especially projects on the city fringes, where they present the dual attributes of close proximity to the city centre and lower prices compared with prime district projects,” noted Knight Frank Singapore research head Alice Tan.

The city-fringe project being previewed this weekend is Hao Yuan Investment’s 736-unit Queens Peak in Dundee Road, which has direct access to Queenstown MRT station.

Indicative average prices at the 99-year leasehold project range from $1,430 per sq ft (psf) to $1,830 psf, with starting prices ranging from $680,000 for a one-bedder to $2.96 million for a five-room unit.

Hao Yuan Investment said yesterday that the project will be grouped into two collections – Botanic Collection, comprising one- to three- bedroom units from the eighth to 26th floors; and Skye Collection, with three- to five-bedders and single-storey penthouses from the 28th to 44th floors.

Buyers with deeper pockets might look to freehold 38 Jervois being developed by Prominent Land. The preview will be held at The Luxe Art Museum in Handy Road.

The 27-unit project has 21 one- to three-bedroom units and six penthouses, with an average price of $2,100 psf onwards, the developer told The Straits Times yesterday.

Unit sizes range from 474 sq ft for a one-bedder to 1,098 sq ft for a two-bedroom plus study penthouse. Prominent Land said the starting price for a one-bedder is $1.08 million; for a two-bedder it is $1.48 million; and for a three-bedroom unit, it is nearly $1.81 million.

It had acquired the site with a detached house at 38 Jervois Road from a person understood to be Mr Eng Fook Hoong in February last year for $25 million, or $1,686 psf.

The mass market project to be previewed this weekend is the 99- year leasehold Parc Riviera in West Coast Vale by EL Development.

The average price of units is expected to be about $1,250 psf, with a total of 752 units up for sale, about 64 per cent of which are one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Market watchers expect these project launches to push new home sales past 1,000 units a month this month and next, but it is too soon to declare that the property market has turned a corner. “I think the trough is very near… the market will see a comfortable landing, but don’t expect it to take off quickly. It’s likely to be a U-shape recovery,” said Mr Sim of CBRE Research.

For investors looking for overseas exposure, CapitaLand is launching its latest Vietnam residential development in Ho Chi Minh City – D1Mension – at The St Regis Singapore tomorrow.

New launches

PRIME DISTRICT 10: 38 JERVOIS IN JERVOIS ROAD
DEVELOPER: Prominent Land
DEVELOPMENT: Freehold, 27 units
PHOTO: PROMINENT LAND

CITY FRINGE: QUEENS PEAK IN DUNDEE ROAD
DEVELOPER: Hao Yuan Investment
DEVELOPMENT: 99-year leasehold, 736 units
PHOTO: HAO YUAN INVESTMENT

SUBURBS: PARC RIVIERA IN WEST COAST VALE
DEVELOPER: EL Development
DEVELOPMENT: 99-year leasehold, 752 units
PHOTO: EL DEVELOPMENT

This article was first published on Oct 21, 2016.
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With personal mobility devices (PMDs) becoming more popular, a start-up company here is looking to launch a pilot programme offering short-term rentals of e-scooters.

Called Telepod, the scheme functions like a bicycle-sharing system, where users can rent e-scooters from docking stations.

The company has developed a prototype docking station that secures a folded-up e-scooter, which can be retrieved by scanning a QR code on the station with a mobile app.

Telepod, founded by five friends who met while studying at Nanyang Technological University, is one of 21 finalists in a Land Transport Authority (LTA) engineering competition for groups to come up with innovative transport solutions.

The group’s project is on display at the Singapore International Transport Congress and Exhibition, a three-day conference at the Suntec City Convention Centre that ends today.

Telepod is looking to launch a pilot system of between 20 and 40 e-scooters by the end of this year at the Social Innovation Park in Punggol, an incubator for social enterprises, said its CEO Gan Jin Ni, 26.

Residents and workers in the area can take the e-scooters for a spin to the Punggol Waterway area. Pricing details have not been finalised, said Ms Gan.

The team began working on the project in April, with the goal of developing a transport solution to cater to the first and last mile of commuters’ journeys.

They ruled out a bicycle-sharing system because of the cost.

“A lot of bicycle-sharing systems rely heavily on government funding,” said Ms Gan, adding that a big chunk of the operating costs stem from regularly redistributing the bicycles through the network.

E-scooters are smaller and easier to redistribute, she said.

Ms Gan developed a mobile app, while other members in the team developed the docking station – which requires only power supply to be set up.

To rent an e-scooter, a user books one on the app, and scans a QR code on the docking station, which unlocks it.

The company ran a two-day trial in August in Woodlands, where they offered 15 e-scooters to students of Republic Polytechnic to travel between the school and Woodlands MRT station, about 1km apart.

They charged $2 for 10 minutes of use. Over the two days, the e-scooters were rented 202 times.

“The response was quite overwhelming,” said Ms Gan, adding that she was confident the idea could also be used in large business complexes or within the business district.

Asked about safety concerns, Telepod said its e-scooters would have their speeds capped at 25kmh, and helmets would also be provided at docking stations.

“The e-scooter is not dangerous; it’s how the user uses it,” said Telepod co-founder Chan Jit Yen, 26.

Safety concerns over PMDs also featured in a panel discussion at the congress yesterday.

A member of the audience asked about Singapore’s stance on PMDs, given concerns about safety.

LTA director of active mobility and policy Tan Shin Gee said the Government would facilitate the use of PMDs, as some people desire a lightweight mode of transport “less strenuous than walking or cycling”.

“The emphasis should be on making sure people know what are the rules, and what are the appropriate codes of conduct or etiquette when they use such devices and share public spaces with people,” said Ms Tan.

This article was first published on Oct 21, 2016.
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The slowing economy has sparked concerns about job losses, but there are thousands of jobs waiting to be filled, Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung said at a forum yesterday.

He pointed to where the jobs are and where jobs will be created:

• 30,000 IT professionals needed by 2017;

• 3,000 more jobs for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in precision engineering by 2020;

• Demand for 1,000 rail engineers;

• At least 1,200 professionals needed in finance, mostly in IT and compliance; and

• 4,000 more early childhood educators needed in the coming years.

Retrenched workers, however, find it difficult to get these jobs because they lack the appropriate skills, Mr Ong said as he talked about the jobs and skills for the future at The Straits Times Future Economy Forum.

Another obstacle is that the jobs are spread across many small industries, instead of being concentrated in a few large sectors.

At a separate event, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong pointed out that greying Singapore will need 30,000 more healthcare workers in five years, to add to today’s 70,000.

Upcoming health facilities will need an entire range of workers, from geriatric doctors to highly trained nurses who can helm clinics.

These include six new polyclinics, another 2,100 public hospital beds, 9,100 extra beds in community hospitals and nursing homes and 7,600 more places in day, home and palliative care for the 610,000 seniors Singapore will have in 2020, a rise from 460,000 last year.

This means “ample good jobs for Singaporeans”, Mr Gan added.

In his speech, Mr Ong noted the slowing economy has led to layoffs, with PMETs being hit hardest.

But the economy is not in recession, he said, unlike in the 2008 global financial crisis when “every week, every other day, some retrenchment exercise was going on”, he said.

“Today, we are still growing albeit at a slower pace.”

However, it is now more difficult to place laid-off workers in new jobs scattered across industries.

This is unlike in 2008 when, “despite the tremendous numbers being retrenched, we had a big emerging sector”, he said, referring to the two integrated resorts which were hiring aggressively.

Today, nine in 10 fresh graduates from local universities and polytechnics land a job in six months, an indication that the labour market is still holding up, he added.

Retrenched PMETs, however, face an uphill task in entering a new industry, as specialised skills are often needed.

In short, they need to acquire new specialised skills to find a job.

Ensuring people can pick up the right skills to take on future jobs is a key focus of the Committee on the Future Economy, and a move in which workers, employers and the Government all have a role to play.

Mr Ong said that while workers need to upgrade their skills, employers too have to be more flexible and open to hiring people from other industries with related skills.

Meanwhile, the Government is tackling the problem in three main ways, he added. These are: helping laid-off workers find new jobs, retraining workers to have the necessary skills, and exploring new growth sectors where jobs can be created.

He noted the National Jobs Bank has some 70,000 vacancies. Many require specialised skills, he added.

For instance, in hospitality, managers with a strong sense of care and duty are needed, and in financial services, those with knowledge of IT applications and cyber security analytics, as well as strong numeric skills, are in demand.

On top of that, he added: “Employees need to be multi-skilled. Besides technical skills, it is also important for them to possess mental skills, such as learning agility, so that they can and are willing to unlearn, learn and relearn.”

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This article was first published on Oct 21, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.