ILLEGAL DEPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN WORKERS

ILLEGAL DEPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN WORKERS

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(Tightening of regulation): **

41.

Mr Siew Kum Hong asked the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) how prevalent is the practice of companies bringing in foreign workers and subcontracting them to other companies in Singapore; (b) in the past three years, how many persons or companies had been charged with illegal deployment or re-deployment of workers and, of these, how many were convicted; and (c) what further steps have been taken to tighten up the regulation of employment agents.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: In general, employers are not permitted to sub-contract their foreign workers to other companies. Doing so would constitute illegal deployment of the worker. The only exception is in the construction sector, where employers may have periods between projects when there are no jobs for their foreign workers. During these periods, construction contractors are allowed to subcontract their foreign workers to other contractors.

In the last three years, about 570 employers were prosecuted and convicted for illegally deploying their foreign workers. They are also debarred from employing foreign workers in the future.

Employment agencies (EAs) are important intermediaries that play a useful role in the protection of foreign workers. Last year, the Ministry reviewed the employment agency licensing regulations to prohibit EAs from offering incentive payments or rebates to employers as consideration or inducement for hiring foreign workers through them. This serves to prevent foreign workers from being exploited and being made to bear the cost of such incentive payments and rebates in order to secure employment in Singapore. Employment agencies that are found to have breached licence regulations are liable to have their licences revoked and their security deposit of $20,000 forfeited. We have also been working with foreign embassies here with regard to errant agents in the source countries. MOM will continue to review the employment agencies' industry, and will be engaging industry members on ways to better protect foreign workers.

But we should also be mindful that the employment agency industry is not responsible for every problem encountered by foreign workers. In particular, where illegal deployment of foreign workers is concerned, employers are the ones that are responsible for the violation.