SINGAPORE: Singapore’s social safety nets must adapt to the “major changes” in the economy and labour market so as to keep inequality in check, said Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on Monday in Parliament.
"At the same time, with major changes in the economy and labour market, we will need to adapt our social safety nets and keep inequality in check.”He added: “More workers will fall on hard times, and we need to enable them to adjust and bounce back through this crisis and beyond." “So I must caution against looking for what may appear to be ‘costless solutions’ – somehow, someone else will have to pay for these schemes. There are trade-offs,” Mr Heng elaborated.
One such strategy, he said, is to find new ways “to be a vital node, with rich and deep interconnections with the rest of the world”.