Will the tightened foreign worker quotas in the recent Budget 2019 hurt any particular industries and companies more than others?

Labour intensive industries such as the construction and service industry definitely comes to mind - a slowdown in the issuance of the number of foreign worker passes will be a limiting factor to the rate of expansion of these industries given that they rely heavily on these foreign talents for labour centric jobs that require more numbers than skill. They plug the gaps in employment that Singaporeans themselves do not want to fulfill.

Though automation is slowly but surely reducing the number of service staff required in the F&B industry, this does not necessarily apply to the construction industry, which automation will not easily replace.

This will in variable increase the cost of production for all these affected companies, and these costs will reverberate throughout the economy. We may feel the effects in the near future, as a rise in price of the menus.

Definitely.

Tightening of foreign worker quota mainly affects 2 things: Expansion Plans and Operational Cost.

Especially so for industries that rely on foreign workers, for example, F&B, the impact would be larger.

That being said, companies can also boost productivity of their existing workforce or invest into automation to reduce some job roles. However, this is easier said than done!