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Oral Answer by Mrs Josephine Teo Second Minister for Manpower to Parliamentary Question on strengthening recruitment and hiring practices

Employment practices

NOTICE PAPER NO. 855 OF 2017 FOR THE SITTING ON 02 OCTOBER 2017

QUESTION NO. 1459 FOR ORAL ANSWER

MP: Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan

To ask the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry will consider regulations to (i) strengthen recruitment and hiring practices by employers (ii) ensure employers acknowledge and inform job applicants on whether they are successful in their job applications; and (b) whether the public sector can take lead in this.

Answer

  1. All employers are already expected to adhere to the principles of fair employment practices, including recruitment and hiring, as set out in the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP). For example, the Guidelines make it clear that job advertisements should not be discriminatory and interviewers should confine questions to those relevant to the job requirements. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices, or TAFEP, looks into complaints about unfair recruitment and hiring practices, and work with non-compliant companies to improve their practices. Where warranted, cases are referred to MOM for investigation.
  2. To further encourage employers to adopt progressive workplace practices, the tripartite partners will develop a series of Tripartite Standards that companies can voluntarily adopt. The Standards detail verifiable progressive actions that companies commit to undertake. Jobseekers will also be able to identify progressive companies and organisations which publicly adopt the Standards. Therefore, employers have an incentive to adopt the Standards even if there are no regulations which require them to.
  3. One of these Standards is on Recruitment Practices, and public sector agencies will take the lead in adopting the Standard when it is launched. One of the specifications in the Standard is for employers to inform all shortlisted applicants who attend their job interviews about the outcome. On the question of whether applicants should be notified even if they are not shortlisted for interviews, the tripartite partners assessed that it would place an onerous burden on some companies particularly SMEs, which have not fully automated their recruitment processes to deal with the large volumes of online applicants. However, the tripartite partners agree that the Standard can be updated over time as companies make progress.