Competition for foreign workers in Singapore is getting fiercer. The new restrictions in Singapore’s small population of five million people are causing a recruitment headache for financial firms and could exacerbate wage inflation.

Lee Quane, regional director, Asia, at ECA International, a regional human resources consultancy, said: "One of the major industries where the foreign workforce has increased in the past five years has been banking and finance and so any measures to reduce the flow of immigration are going to be felt in banking and finance - it's going to add to the cost of doing business."