ILLEGAL FOREIGN WORKERS

Mr Teo Chong Tee asked the Minister for Labour (a) how many illegal foreign workers had been arrested from construction sites for each of the years from 1994 to September 1996; (b) whether illegal foreign workers had also been found in other industries; (c) what effective measures are being taken to curb the illegal influx into the job market; and (d) whether his Ministry will relax its rules to allow more foreign workers to take up jobs in industries which Singaporeans shy away from.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Speaker, Sir, in 1994, 386 illegal foreign workers were arrested at construction sites. This rose to 932 in 1995. In the first nine months of 1996, 938 illegal workers had already been arrested.

Besides the construction industry, illegal foreign workers are also found in service industries, such as foodstalls, cafeteria, coffeeshops, provision shops and cleaning services.

As the problem of illegal employment was most serious in the construction industry, the Employment of Foreign Workers Act was amended to hold principal contractors in the construction industry responsible for illegal workers found at their work sites and to facilitate prosecution of employers of illegal workers.

Besides the amendments to the Employment of Foreign Workers Act, my Ministry in conjunction with the Police and Immigration Department has also stepped up enforcement action to detect and arrest illegal construction workers. The marine industry and construction industry are two areas which have the most difficulty in recruiting local workers. In view of this, we have allowed higher dependency ceilings for these two industries. The dependency ceiling for the marine industry is one local worker to three foreign workers, while that for the construction industry, it is one local worker to five foreign workers. Currently, 96% of the marine companies and 92% of the construction companies are operating within the prevailing dependency ceiling. There is no need to raise the dependency ceiling at this juncture.