Oral Answer to PQ on FW Policies for hawkers and small FB operators
NOTICE PAPER 533 OF 2026 FOR A SITTING ON OR AFTER 25 FEBRUARY 2026
QUESTION NO. 1550 FOR ORAL ANSWER
MP: Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo
To ask the Minister for Manpower whether more graduated or proportional arrangements for foreign manpower and levy thresholds can be considered for hawkers and small food and beverage operators to meet their essential kitchen and service staffing needs while still ensuring fair wages and protections for all workers.
Answer:
We recognise the manpower challenges faced by small food and beverage operators, including our hawkers, given our ageing demographic and rising local aspirations.
2. As a unique combination of food, space and community, hawker centers are a microcosm of Singapore’s multicultural society. To preserve the local identity of our hawker culture and heritage, the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) only allow Singaporean Citizens and Permanent Residents to be stallholders at our hawker centres. Stallholders can also hire eligible Long-Term Visit Pass or Long-Term Visit Pass-Plus holders, who are already in Singapore and can contribute to our economy.
3. Licensed food shops, such as restaurants, can hire foreign workers, subject to the Services foreign worker levy rates and quota of two locals to one foreign worker. To address the manpower needs of micro enterprises, we allow those with only one local worker to hire their first Work Permit Holder. Differentiating levies and quotas further to favour smaller operators could incentivise larger operators to break up into smaller entities to hire more foreign workers. This could result in a large increase in the number of foreign workers, which would not be sustainable given our limited infrastructural and social carrying capacity.
4. If the member has been reading The Straits Times, there was an opinion piece on the 24th of February, Tuesday last week, written by Associate Professor Lee Kuan-Huei, chief research officer of the Singapore Productivity Centre. In that article, there was quite a good database of opinions on the current state of play in the F&B sector. If I may share some insights from that opinion piece, she said that there is a structural problem in the way F&B operators here still operate. One key thing is that productivity gains have lagged behind growth. This means that F&B operators are putting more effort and resources into operations without the proportional economic gains. Her suggestion is that productivity, and not headcount, must be the central lens through which productivity is assessed and for which business viability is looked at.
5. Instead of just looking at raising headcounts, the Government has schemes to support small F&B companies. These include the FoodX programme, which supports the outsourcing of labour-intensive food preparation to central kitchens to improve operational efficiency, as well as the F&B Process Optimisation Programme, which supports technological adoption and process redesign. Companies may also tap on broader schemes such as the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) to support transformation efforts to raise productivity.
6. We will continue to review the foreign manpower policies for hawkers and small F&B companies together with relevant agencies, including MSE.