2. Speeches
MOS Lee Yi Shyan's oral reply to Parliament Question on Productivity
10 January 2011
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Question No 666 of Notice Paper No 273 of 2010
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mdm Ho Geok Choo, Member for West Coast GRC.
Question
To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry how does the productivity of the foreign workforce in Singapore compared with the productivity of the local workforce for the years 2009 and 2010
Answer
Mr Speaker, Sir, labor productivity is the value of output each worker produces. It is measured by taking the total value-added and dividing it by the number of workers. Currently, our national productivity data is obtained by aggregating the output of industries and dividing it over the workers employed. As industries and firms do not submit data showing separately, output value by local and foreign workers, our aggregate data too would not be able to distinguish productivity due to local or foreign workers as separate measures.
This said, every worker who is added to the workforce will either raise or reduce the collective productivity of the workforce, regardless whether they are local or foreign. This is why the government emphasizes the importance of skills upgrading and productivity improvement for the entire workforce.