Parliament House abuts the Singapore River

In a written reply to a Parliamentary question, the Minister for Manpower revealed that 65% of Work Permit holders who had received Change of Employer letters (COEs) were successful in finding new jobs, as indicated by the fact that new Work Permits had been applied for them by new employers and the applications were approved within the validity period of the COE letters.

This is a relatively good percentage, though naturally, it can be better. It still leaves 35%, or about one in three migrant workers who, despite getting a chance to look for new jobs, are unable to move on within the limited time given to them.

The question was asked by Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Eileen Chong Pei Shan (Workers’ Party):

To ask the Minister for Manpower (a) how many Change of Employer (COE) letters have been issued to work permit holders with valid employment claims (i) in 2024 and (ii) from 1 January 2025 to 30 June 2025, respectively; and (b) how many of these work permit holders subsequently got In-Principle Approvals issued within the validity period of their COE letters.

On 24 September 2025, the minister provided a written reply:

1. Work Permit holders with valid salary claims lodged with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) are allowed to look for a new employer and would be issued with Change of Employer (COE) letters. About 1,600 and 1,100 Work Permit holders with valid salary claims were issued with such COE letters in 2024 and from January to June 2025 respectively.

2. Of these, about 65% subsequently obtained a Work Permit approval within the validity period of their COE letters. For the remaining workers, there were either no Work Permit applications submitted, or their Work Permit applications were rejected because employer did not meet Work Permit requirements, such as having insufficient Work Permit quota.

TWC2’s comment

Before getting to the bigger implications of the above reply from the minister, one smallish thing needs to be mentioned. The (rounded) figure for all of 2024 was 1,600 COEs. That for the first six months of 2025 was 1,100 COEs, which is 69% of the previous full-year figure. There is no explanation why the going rate for 2025 appears significantly higher than 2024.

A more useful comparison that can be made is between the number of COE letters issued and the number of employment claims filed in the same period. The 2024 Employment Standards Report gave the following statistics:

  • 6,265 employment claims were filed by foreign employees.
  • They formed 54% of the total number of employment claims filed (11,685).
  • 9,848 were salary claims making 84% of total claims (no figure provided for foreign-employee salary claims).
  • More than 90% of claimants “fully” recovered their salaries and payments at either the mediation or tribunal stage. (TWC2’s view is that “fully” misrepresents the outcomes).

Whilst it is a pity that among the more granular statistics, separate figures were not provided for foreign employees, one still gets the sense that the great majority of them were successful too, since foreign workers formed the majority of claimants. This means that their claims, being “valid” claims, would have been eligible for COEs. But there were 6,265 claims filed by foreign employees in 2024. Yet only 1,600 COEs were issued or only about one in four – and not all of these lucky workers were successful in getting to new jobs.

That’s a low proportion, and we naturally wonder why. We realise, of course, that one should be careful about a simplistic reading of these numbers, for there are situations where the question of a COE may not arise at all. The possible situations are listed below, though all of them are quite minor, and we find it hard to conceive how they could lead to only one in four claimants getting a COE.

1. A small percentage of the 6,265 foreign worker claimants might not have had valid claims, so they were not eligible for COEs. This couldn’t be more than 10% since the Employment Standards Report said 90% recovered their salaries – therefore they must have had valid claims.

2. There was surely a slight mismatch of time. COE issuance dates would not be the same as filing dates for employment claims; there would be some mismatch.

3. Some workers, despite having valid claims might not have wanted to continue working in Singapore and therefore did not need COEs.

4. Some workers, although they might have wanted to continue working in Singapore, did not know about the possibility of COEs and their case officers at the ministry did not pro-actively offer such permission letters to them.

5. Some of the workers who filed valid claims were not on Work Permits in the first place; they were on S-Passes or Employment Passes, and these categories of foreign employees are free to find new jobs without needing to have COEs in hand. However, one should bear in mind that Work Permit holders outnumber S-Pass and Employment Pass holders by two and a half times. This cannot be a major explanation for why so many claimants did not get COEs.

6. There would be workers who, despite filing employment claims against their employers, also got transfer letters from their employers and moved on to new jobs using that route. The workers would therefore not need COE letters from the Ministry of Manpower. However, in our experience, this is rare as the relationship between employer and employee (who had filed a formal complaint) would typically be so contentious, employers would not be willing to issue transfer permission letters.

None of the above reasons (even taken together) is common enough to truly explain why roughly three-quarters of foreign-employee claimants did not get COEs in the first place. Until we have an understanding why this is so, it may be premature to see the 65% success rate as a truly positive figure.

Successful in getting new jobs, but at what price?

Another angle to bear in mind is this: How many workers, despite having COEs in hand, have to pay thousands of dollars to get new jobs? In TWC2’s experience, a majority of workers tell us they have had to use illegal agents who typically demand $1,000 to $3,000 for a new placement. See our April 2025 article: Honeypot for illegal agents.

Something else that workers tell us is that they often have to accept new jobs that pay less than their previous jobs. This happens because the validity period of a COE letter is only 15 days. Given such a tight timeline, workers accept whatever job the illegal agent can find for them, rather than wait for the right fit. They simply do not have the luxury of time.

On this score too, there are reservations as to what the 65% figure really represents.