What will improve the lives of workers are better wages and better prospects, rather than a bigger wage share of the country's gross domestic product, said Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat yesterday.
Mr Heng was refuting NonConstituency MP Hazel Poa's statement on Wednesday that wages should form a larger component of gross domestic product (GDP) to give workers more benefits of economic growth.
"A capital-intensive economy open to investment and trades can have lower wage shares than labour-intensive economies," he said.
For example, he noted that the wage share of the biomedical sector's output is less than 6 per cent, compared with more than 60 per cent in the accommodation and food services sectors. But workers in the biomedical sector earn more than twice as much as those in accommodation and food services.
"What will improve the lives of our workers are better wages and better prospects, not the aggregate share. What matters more is that wage growth for our workers is in line with productivity so that it is sustainable," he said.
Mr Heng noted that Mr Darryl David (Ang Mo Kio GRC) and Mr Faisal Manap (Aljunied GRC) had welcomed the salary increase for healthcare workers and asked for the wages of other front-line workers and sectors to be enhanced as well.
"There are good, meaningful jobs in healthcare for our locals and it is important to pay them the salary that they deserve - commensurate with the work that they do," Mr Heng said.
"This is how we are able to attract and retain locals in the long term, even as other markets compete for our Singaporean talents."
Mr Heng also responded to Nominated MP Raj Joshua Thomas and Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman (Marine Parade GRC), who had raised the need to continue boosting the incomes of lower-wage workers and the progressive wage model.
Mr Heng said there has been some progress, with citizens' real incomes from 2016 to 2019 at the 20th percentile growing at 4.4 per cent per annum, faster than the median at 3.7 per cent per annum.
Helping low-wage workers and self-employed persons continues to be a work in progress, he added.
"I hope that if some of the new measures lead to a modest increase in costs, caring Singaporeans will agree that this is worth doing for solidarity," he said.
He also noted that the Government is pushing ahead with its plan to raise the retirement and re-employment ages next year to support older workers.
More can also be done to boost the hiring of persons with disabilities, he said.
"Helping every Singaporean achieve his potential is a key priority for us in building an inclusive society. We agree that more can be done and there are plans in the pipeline."
