Singapore - The city-state's much-touted COMPASS framework for managing foreign employment may have successfully addressed mid-tier job competition, but it has left untouched the barriers preventing Singaporeans from reaching senior leadership positions in multinational corporations, according to industry veterans and policy critics.
At issue are two major exemptions to the Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS) and Fair Consideration Framework: a salary threshold of S$22,500 per month that exempts the highest earners, and blanket exemptions for intra-corporate transferees (ICTs) - both of which directly affect access to C-suite and senior management roles.
The leadership gap
The critique, which has gained traction in policy circles following Chinese New Year discussions among business leaders, centers on a simple question: How many Singaporeans hold top leadership positions in MNCs based in Singapore?
The answer, according to several senior executives who spoke on background, is "very few."
"COMPASS did its job at the median level - it addressed the cheap labor concerns that NTUC raised," said a former APAC president at a Fortune 50 technology company. "But the real issue Singaporeans face today isn't job availability. It's the glass ceiling. Breaking into the C-suite is incredibly hard unless you move overseas first, and post-COVID, there are structural barriers preventing that pathway."
The S$22,500 salary exemption covers approximately 20,000 Employment Pass holders - the top 10 percent - who are exempt from both COMPASS scoring requirements and the job advertising mandates of the Fair Consideration Framework. ICT exemptions make it easy for multinationals to parachute in senior leaders from headquarters or regional offices without considering local candidates.
The historical bargain
Fifty years ago, Singapore's founding generation removed protectionist measures to attract investment and import global talent with an explicit long-term goal: Singaporeans would learn from these leaders and eventually grow into those roles themselves.
"The idea behind removing protectionist measures was to attract investments and bring in top global talent so Singaporeans could learn from them," wrote a Singapore Reddit user whose detailed policy critique sparked widespread discussion this week. "The end goal was always for locals to slowly grow into those leadership roles."
But that transition never happened at scale. Instead, critics argue, current policies are designed to smooth the movement of foreign talent into senior roles while locals remain stuck in middle management.
"There is absolutely zero incentive for companies to groom locals for the top jobs," the post continued. "Our current policies are designed to smoothen or completely remove barriers for the movement of foreign talent in senior roles, while locals get stuck."
The self-reinforcing cycle
The concern extends beyond individual career trajectories to policy influence. With MNC leadership dominated by foreign talent exempt from local hiring frameworks, the argument goes, corporate lobbying naturally pushes for policies that favor continued foreign hiring - creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
"With foreign core, the policies are influenced in favor of foreign core and it's an ongoing cycle for decades," the Reddit analysis concluded. "How can we get out of this loop?"
The Ministry of Manpower has defended the exemptions as necessary to maintain Singapore's competitiveness as a regional hub. Officials argue that companies need flexibility to deploy global talent, and that excessive regulation of senior positions would drive headquarters functions to Hong Kong, Tokyo, or Dubai.
But for mid-career Singaporean professionals watching senior positions filled by transfers from London, New York, or Sydney - often for roles they believe themselves qualified to hold - the promise of meritocracy rings hollow.
"Ten countries, 700 million people, one region - and Singapore, which built its success on developing local talent, now faces a generation asking whether the system is designed to keep them in middle management forever," said Yeoh Lam Keong, former chief economist at the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.
The Ministry of Manpower has not commented on the critiques or announced any reviews of the exemption thresholds.
